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Chekov is my favorite playwright. I would give just about anything to have written a play that matches Uncle Vanya, Ivanov or The Three Sisters in truth, artfulness, character. His plays reach the heights of great tragedy and comedy without a hint of artificiality, and then he spins it all about and finds the great comedy in what is tragic and the tragedy in what makes us laugh.
I am interested in creating stories with characters who despite their flaws, their bad decisions, their selfish inhibitions, their awkward/comic interactions and tragic set backs, push themselves on to an enlightened understanding of their place in the world.
Joel Drake Johnson is one of the newest members of Chicago’s Victory Gardens Theater Playwrights Ensemble. The critically acclaimed, Jeff nominated Four Places was produced by Victory Gardens in the spring of 2008 and was published by Northwestern University Press. His earlier works at VG, Before My Eyes and The End of the Tour, were also Jeff-nominated for Best New Play and all three plays were directed by Sandy Shinner, Victory Gardens’ Associate Artistic Director. The End of the Tour was chosen for inclusion in the anthology New Plays From Chicago and was published once again by The Broadway Play Publishing Company.
Johnson's relationship with Steppenwolf Theater began in 2004 with the Jeff Award winning20production of The Fall to Earth (director: Rick Snyder) featuring Tony Award winner Rondi Reed. The Fall to Earth was also published by the Broadway Play Publishing Company.
Steppenwolf subsequently commissioned Johnson to write A Blameless Life (director: Anna D. Shapiro) and Tranquillity Woods (director: Sandy Shinner) which they produced in the summer of 2005 and 2007. The Fall to Earth was later produced by the Penguin Repertory Theatre featuring Tony award winner Michele Pawk and directed by Joe Brancato.
Johnson won Illinois Arts Council grants for Blind Hearts, The Fall to Earth and A Blue Moon, which was first produced at Chicago Dramatists and also Jeff nominated for best new work . He got his start as a writer at Chicago's critically acclaimed Econo-Art Theater, which (under the leadership of Lynn Baber, Barb Reeder and Marc Silvia) produced such plays as Beautiful Dreamer and A Slim and Crooked Genius. As the Beaver, was a critical and popular hit for Chicago's Zebra Crossing Theater. His teleplay “A Moment of Rage”(co-written with VG ensemble member John Logan) was nominated for an Emmy award.
He has taught playwriting at Northwestern University, DePaul University and Stevenson High School in Lincolnshire. He lives in Chicago and New Buffalo, Michigan where he is working on three new plays: The First Grade ,a third commission from Steppenwolf Theatre and a winning finalist in The Aurora Theatre Company’s Global Age Project where it will be produced as part of their 2009-10 season; A Guide for the Perplexed which will be produced by Victory Gardens in their 2009-2010 season and star Kevin Anderson and Fran Guinan; The Boys’ Room which was first read at Victory Gardens Theatre and was also a part of Northlight Theatre’s Interplay and Steppenwolf Theatre’s First Look new play reading series.
Johnson is a member of the Dramatists Guild and Pen America. |
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