CLARKSTON

By Samuel D. Hunter

Directed by Devin Dumas

Travelling West to rediscover himself after a fatal diagnosis, Jake unexpectedly meets Chris – a kindred soul hiding in a night shift at a Costco in a rural American town. Both feeling stuck in different ways and having different lived experiences with their identities, the two begin to navigate each other and their desire for more in the mundane circumstances they’ve found themselves feeling unrelentingly frozen in.

A quiet dramatic comedy about isolation, identity, self-acceptance, and survival, Why’s It Gotta Be Theater Group hopes this close staging of Samuel D. Hunter’s Clarkston will resonate intimately with anyone who’s ever felt stuck in their hometown or within themselves.

“Samuel D. Hunter gives his characters engagingly chewy dialogue and complex origins... gorgeous writing... Clarkston is lovely.” – The Times

“A quietly devastating work of rare emotional depth... the kind of play that changes the way you view the world... a triumph.” – Theatre Weekly

"An exceedingly special and highly unconventional theatrical event." – New York Stage Review

“Chamber theatre of the most deeply moving kind. By the evening’s end, you’ll have a palpable sense of having shared something special with your fellow theatergoers” –The Hollywood Reporter