THEATRE + COMEDY

Stages Repertory Theatre continues its 2010-2011 season with the regional premiere of Joel Drake Johnson’s new drama Four Places, playing April 27-May 22 in Stages’ Yeager Theater. The Stages production features an ensemble cast including Cristine McMurdo-Wallis, Luisa Amaral-Smith, Lisa Thomas Morrison, and Jack Young. Stages Producing Artistic Director Kenn McLaughlin directs.

“I fell in love with this script about two pages in”, says McLaughlin. “The writing is so honest, the characters so clear and real - and the situation is at once so simple and theatrical - I knew by the time I had reached the end that we simply had to produce this work.” McLaughlin is especially excited to be working with playwright Joel Drake Johnson to make sure Houstonaudiences get the best possible production. “Joel creates characters that are so complex and real, you know each and every thing they are going through - even if you have never been where they are before - they are people you just know - and that is the gift of a remarkable writer.”

When Peggy’s (Cristine McMurdo-Wallis) grown children (Luisia Amaral-Smith and Jack Young) take her to lunch, she has no idea what they have planned. As the afternoon continues, Peggy’s own secrets are revealed, and as she struggles to maintain her independence, her children confront the reality that parents have lives of their own. At once marvelously funny and unflinchingly honest, Four Places is a compelling look at the ways families change as children grow up and parents grow old.

“It has been an amazing artistic challenge to work on this play,” says McLaughlin. “The emotional landscape of the piece is deep and powerful traveling to some of the most difficult places we go as people - addiction, death, hidden family secrets and the "lies" we tell ourselves to get through each day....there is nothing that is not exposed by the end of the play and the amount of strength it takes to reach these places is remarkable. I am so blessed to be working with four brilliant actors who are brave and so very, very talented.”

Four Places is a part of a new initiative at Stages, called the “Keep Talking” series! Keep the conversation going even after the show is over! Present your Four Places voucher at Max’s Wine Dive or any Tasting Room location and get 15% off your food order so you can munch while you enjoy the fabulous wine selection!

“I love the hidden poetry of the play. While it seems to be a raw, family drama - the dialogue holds a host of magnificent poetry and lifts the play into the realm of the great family dramas of Arthur Miller or Tennessee Williams,” McLaughlin says. “It is at once modern and familiar and classic and that's the pull of this writer.”

Four Places premiered in 2008 at Chicago’s Victory Garden Theater, where author Joel Drake Johnson is a resident playwright, and where his new play The Boys Room is currently enjoying its world premiere. Johnson got his start as a writer at Chicago's critically acclaimed Econo-Art Theatre under the artistic direction of Lynn Baber, Barb Reeder and Marc Silvia who produced five of his plays. As the Beaver, a critical and popular hit for Chicago's Zebra Crossing Theatre was also produced at the Burbage Theatre in LA and the Vortex Theatre in Austin, TX. Other plays have been produced at the New Playwrights' Theatre in Ashland, Oregon; the West Bank Theatre and The Ensemble Studio Theatre in NYC; Manbites Dog in Durham; The Road Theatre in LA and the Milwaukee Repertory Theatre.

Johnson won Illinois Arts Council grants for Blind Hearts, The Fall to Earth and A Blue Moon. A Blue Moon was first produced at the Chicago Dramatists Theatre and, in the fall of 2002, it was nominated for best new work by the Joseph Jefferson Committee. The Jeff Award winning production of The Fall to Earth was first produced (in an extended run) by Steppenwolf Theatre (2004). It was published by Broadway Play Publishing in the fall of 2006. Steppenwolf Theatre subsequently commissioned Johnson to write A Blameless life and Tranquility Woods which they produced in the summer of 2005 and '07, respectively.

Johnson is a member of The Dramatists Guild, PenAmericaCenterand the Chicago Dramatists advisory board. He has taught playwriting at NorthwesternUniversity, DePaulUniversityand StevensonHigh Schoolin Lincolnshire. He lives in Chicago and New Buffalo, Michigan.