The following articles appeared in Actors Theatre's subscriber newsletters prior to the 1993 Humana Festival.

STANTON’S GARAGE: A REPAIR SHOP FOR BROKEN HEARTS
It’s every foreign car owner’s nightmare. Your car breaks down in the middle of nowhere, leaving you at the complete mercy of the nearest gas station. There’s no telling what’s wrong with the car. There’s no telling who’s going to fix it or when. There’s no telling how well it will be fixed if it ever is fixed. You begin to doubt that you’ll ever reach your destination. You especially doubt this if you’re on a tight schedule and someone on the other end is expecting you. Being a normally rational and intelligent person, you quickly size up the situation and realize that neither your vast education nor your MasterCard will help you here. Mechanical failure is the great equalizer. You have no choice but to wait. And drink six-hour old coffee. And wait some more.

Stanton’s Garage chronicles such an experience in the life of a forty-something year old doctor named Lee who, along with her soon-to-be stepdaughter Frannie, is en route to a wedding when her Volvo gives out somewhere in Missouri. Joining them in what director Steven Albrezzi calls the "tapestry of lives" that makes up this play are Ron, also waiting to have his car fixed (and furious about his ex-wife’s remarriage) and mechanics Silvio, Denny ("the living legend") and Harlon, whose young life is presently in turmoil because he can’t decide whether or not to pierce his ear, much less which ear to pierce. The owner of the garage is in absentia due to a minor scrape with the law. Her replacement is a crusty sixty-year-old named Mary, whose chief pleasures in life seem to be sucking the salt off saltine crackers, making egg salad, and providing companionship to Silvio’s estranged wife Audrey.

The complex universe of Stanton’s Garage is created when these eight very different characters converge. The play takes a humorous and revealing look at them, while they wait for their cars and their lives to be repaired. Director Albrezzi says, "This is a day where things change."

Playwright Joan Ackermann explores the movement of women into a stereotypically male environment and, within the environment, traces the development of female relationships. She also addresses the concept of empowerment. One by one the characters in Stanton’s Garage realize that only by taking control of situations themselves can they begin to move forward in their lives. In the case of Lee and Frannie, whose relationship has been clouded by the presence of Lee’s fiancé, who is coincidentally Frannie’s father, their discovery that together they are capable of fixing a Volvo enables both of them to confront the man who is holding up their journey.

The other characters can fine-tune their lives too. Ron discovers the art of self-repair, a small but important step. Denny, who has been troubled by spells of dizziness and fainting, learns that the problem is in his head and time will heal it. Harlon lets Frannie pierce his ear, and then lets her go. Silvio and Audrey rediscover that what drove their marriage for 36 years can still drive it. And Mary realizes that a simple invitation to dinner can begin a new and promising friendship.

Joan Ackermann orchestrates the ordinary with such adept hands that you might ask her to repair your car. On the other hand, she might just show you that you can fix it all by yourself, without any assistance at all.

— Julie Beckett Crutcher & Michele Volansky

ON THE ROAD WITH JOAN ACKERMANN
Joan Ackermann, the playwright of Stanton’s Garage, comes to the Humana Festival of New American Plays having worn a number of very different hats over the course of her varied career. This doesn’t seem to be a problem since she makes it quite clear, "I like being busy. No, I don’t like just being busy. I like being active."

Ackermann was last in Louisville for Zara Spook and Other Lures in the 14th Humana Festival. At that time, she noted that for a future project, she "would like to write a small musical." In the past year, Ackermann has put together about ten songs for just that. She says the piece is about what women do when they give over their power to men, and how they seem to diminish themselves as a result. Ackermann believes that women can have both the power and the man, and her heroine in the musical sets out to learn how. There are similarities among that piece, Stanton’s Garage, and Zara Spook which Ackermann describes as "women exploring the male side of themselves." She has also written a Christmas musical titled Yonder Peasant based upon a line from the Christmas carol "Good King Wenceslaus." The play has delighted audiences for the past four years at Mixed Company (a theatre company she co-founded) in Great Barrington, Mass.

Ackermann has served as producer of Mixed Company for the last ten years. The role of producer has kept her quite busy, especially in recent weeks. Stanton’s Garage was workshopped there, and Ackermann played a major role in all facets of the production, from gathering props such as brake fluid, to working the box office, to designing the poster, to running lights for the show. Being the playwright is not always enough. She adds, "It’s all just sitting." Running the lights gave her another perspective on her play. "It was enormously helpful to see it first in Massachusetts," she says, "because I fiddled with it a little and I kept going back to the original. I’m really excited to have it premiere at Actors Theatre of Louisville."

In addition to her work as a producer, playwright and now lighting operator, Ackermann is also an actor. Her first role came at age 12, and since then she has performed a number of different roles at a variety of venues. Her most recent role was that of Kate in Bedroom Farce, which Mixed Company produced as a way of celebrating their tenth anniversary. "It was the first show we ever did, so bringing it back was a lot of fun and very special." Of acting, Ackermann says, "I find it very soothing. You get to go somewhere, be someone. Hide out in that person. It’s a narrower scope. Not easier than playwriting, just more focused."

Despite the many roles she plays, playwriting remains in the forefront. For Stanton’s Garage, in order to learn about auto mechanics, she contacted a friend who was willing to share his knowledge, if she was willing to buy the pizzas. "He’s a real clever guy," she notes. Her background in journalism (she has contributed to Time, The New Yorker and Sports Illustrated) comes in handy when working on a play such as Stanton’s Garage with not-so-familiar details. She also contacted an ophthalmologist in order to make Lee more convincing, "Playwriting is like journalism. You want to make things real, do your research."

In Stanton’s Garage, Ackermann has successfully created real characters in real situations, who are, like their playwright, always ready to move.

— Michele Volansky

"Observe always that everything is the result of change, and get used to thinking that there is nothing Nature loves so well as to change existing forms and to make new ones like them."
— Marcus Aurelius, Meditation