THEATRE + COMEDY

The Country Playhouse (Town & Country Village) Black Box Productions presents How I Learned to Drive, by Paula Voegel. Directed by Sheryl Stanley.

Presented in the style of an educational driving film, one woman's tale of encounters with her uncle behind the wheel of her first car is both a coming-of-age story and a coming-to-terms story.

Lil Bit, as she's nicknamed by her misguided and often oblivious family, looks back at an inappropriate relationship that haunted her youth and seeks solace in the approach she's taken to bring about closure.

How I Learned to Drive won almost every major award the year it debuted off Broadway in 1997, including the Pulitzer Prize for Drama, the Obie Award, Drama Desk Award, and Outer Critics Circle Award. Although the subject matter deals with a young woman’s memory of being molested by her aunt’s husband, the play is sensitive, poignant and at times funny with the right balance of humor and compassion for all its damaged characters.

In the Black Box production, the action is in continuous fast forward even as Li'l Bit casts backward in time to 1963 to tell us her story, using one constant character, Uncle Peck, and a Greek Chorus to fill in the rest of the family. Driving, and learning to drive, are the vivid memories in her life. Music of the time, arranged by Passley and Dunn, and sung by the Greek Chorus, evoke the emotional environment of the times.

A wildly funny, surprising and devastating tale of survival as seen through the lens of a troubling relationship between a young girl and an older man.

Cast Members: Elizabeth Marshall, Chuck Houston, John Dunn, Maria Sirgo, Monica Passley.

HOW I LEARNED TO DRIVE is the story of a woman who learns the rules of the road and life from behind the wheel.

NOTE: This play deals with mature subject matter and is not suitable for children or our more sensitive audience members.

The Country Playhouse is supported in part by generous grants from: Houston Endowment Inc., Albert and Ethel Herzstein Charitable Foundations, Texas Commission on the Arts, City of Houston through the Houston Alliance, Salners Family Foundation and The Cullen Trust for the Performing Arts.