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Who's ready to leave Iowa?

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By the time rehearsals for any play enter the home stretch, directors have usually stopped laughing at the show’s jokes. For Rochester Community and Technical College ’s production of the heart-warming comedy "Leaving Iowa," that’s not the case.

"I’m still laughing at stuff, and trust me, at this point, I kind of don’t laugh anymore, because I’m going, ‘Ehh, yeah, yeah, we’ve seen it,’" said RCTC drama director Jerry Casper.

That’s a good sign, since "Leaving Iowa" is a comedy. It follows a writer who travels from Boston to his hometown of Winterset, Iowa, to visit his family. Three years before the play starts, his father passed away, and the family has yet to do anything with his ashes. The writer convinces his family to allow him to find a final resting place for the remains, then embarks on a journey that retraces the steps of family vacations past.  

"It’s not as sad as it sounds," said Casper.  "It is a feel-good show. It’s a comedy about family and about vacations and about memories. There’s nothing about it that doesn’t either make you laugh or touch you."

Many of the laughs are mined from family vacation memories that seem to have happened to everyone: mismatched enthusiasm for tourist-traps, a father’s temper lost on the freeway, and other troubles brought on by roadway malaise.  

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The father was a history teacher who liked to impart random facts, visit odd places, and converse with the strange characters populating the road. In RCTC’s production, the character is brought to life by local theater legend Greg Miller. This isn’t the first time Miller and Casper have worked together: Casper has directed Miller before, and vice-versa. The addition of Miller to the cast, according to Casper, has given everyone reason to exceed expectations.

"What’s great about having somebody of his level working with my students is they rise up. They don’t want to look stupid against him and it makes the whole show better," said Casper. "The better the people are you work with, the better you are. You feed off of each other. So I love having him in this show because I’ve seen people who probably would do good work doing exceptional work because of him."

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