West Coast Premiere Of CLARKSTON By Samuel D. Hunter to be Presented At The Echo Theater Company

The Echo Theater Company will present a play about human connection by MacArthur Foundation “Genius Grant” recipient Samuel D. Hunter. Chris Fields directs the West Coast premiere of Clarkston running September 14 through October 21 at Atwater Village Theatre. Three Pay-What-You-Want previews are set for September 11, 12 and 13.

Welcome to Clarkston, Washington, where Jake (Michael Sturgis) and Chris (Sean Luc Rogers) meet working the night shift at Costco. Jake, a middle-class, educated new hire who's a distant relative of explorer William Clark, has fled his privileged life in Connecticut after being diagnosed with a serious illness. Chris, a would-be writer with a meth-addicted mom (Tasha Ames), is stuck in what he fears is a dead-end life in a dead-end town. Soon, their tentative attraction develops into something much deeper and more complicated.

“Samuel Hunter is a playwright who breaks my heart,” says Fields. “This acutely beautiful and tender play about two people who find solace in each other set in, of all places, a Costco and a parking lot, is a testament to the power of love and connection in today's unkind, distant, isolating world.”

Best known for the 2011 Obie Award-winning A Bright New Boise and the 2013 Drama Desk and Lucille Lortel award-winning The Whale, Hunter has called Clarkston his most delicate and intimate play.

“Most of my plays have some sort of spiritual element to them,” Hunter explained in an interview. “In Clarkston, this takes the form of the Lewis and Clark journey and this young man who is a descendant of William Clark who is struggling to find meaning and truth in his life. When I'm writing about characters like this, I think it's more dynamic to put them in places where God and meaning appear to be distinctly absent—corporate buildings, parking lots, chain restaurants, big-box stores, etc. Placing a character that is seeking God in a church is one thing, but placing that character in a break room at a Walmart is something else entirely. And maybe you can understand the need for God more clearly when you're under harsh fluorescent lights and surrounded by discount junk food.”

Clarkston, Washington was first settled in 1862 and named after William Clark of the Lewis and Clark Expedition, which first passed through the area by canoe in October, 1805. Hunter wrote Clarkston in 2016, following a year later with a second play called Lewiston, a stand-alone companion piece set on the other side of the Snake River, in Lewiston, Idaho, a city named after Meriwether Lewis. Both plays premiered at New York's Rattlestick Playwrights Theater in 2018.

The creative team for Clarkston includes scenic designer Amanda Knehans, lighting designer Matthew Richter, sound designer Alysha Grace Bermudez, and costume designer Dianne K Graebner. The production stage manager is Lisa Toudic. Chris Fields, Kelly Beech and Marie Bland produce for the Echo Theater Company.

Founded in 1997, the Echo Theater Company has gained a reputation for producing and developing exciting new work. Under the artistic leadership of Chris Fields, the company has championed playwrights for a quarter century, producing and commissioning numerous world premieres and introducing Los Angeles to playwrights David Lindsay-Abaire, Adam Rapp and Sarah Ruhl among others. The Echo has won countless Los Angeles Drama Critics Circle, Ovation, LA Weekly and Stage Raw awards, and is frequently cited on end-of-the-year “Best of Lists” including by the Los Angeles Times, LA Observed and NPR affiliate KCRW 89.9 FM, among others. The company was anointed “Best Bet for Ballsy Original Plays” by the LA Weekly and was a recipient of a “Kilroy Cake Drop” to honor its efforts to produce women and trans writers. KCRW declared that “Echo Theater Company is on a fierce journey,” and Los Angeles Times theater critic Charles McNulty wrote, “Artistic directors of theaters of all sizes would be wise to follow the [lead] of the Echo's Chris Fields, who [is] building audience communities eager for the challenge of path-breaking plays.” In April, the Echo was honored with three Los Angeles Drama Critics Circle Awards including the prestigious Margaret Harford Award for Excellence In Theatre. In May, last season's production of How It's Gon' Be by JuCoby Johnson was the recipient of four Stage Raw awards.

Clarkston opens on Saturday, Sept. 14, with performances continuing on Fridays and Saturdays at 8 p.m.; Sundays at 4 p.m.; and Mondays at 8 p.m. through October 21. Three preview performances are set for Wednesday, Sept .11; Thursday, Sept. 12; and Friday, Sept. 13, each at 8 p.m. On Fridays, Saturdays and Sundays, tickets are $38. All Monday night performances, as well as previews, are Pay-What-You-Want. Atwater Village Theatre is located at 3269 Casitas Ave in Los Angeles, CA 90039.

For more information and to purchase tickets, call (747) 350-8066 or go to www.EchoTheaterCompany.com.

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