Great Barrington Public Theater THE STONES Opens June 15

Great Barrington Public Theater set to stage the American premiere of The Stones, a mind-twisting gothic mystery, with Ryan Winkles in a solo performance as the haunted school teacher Nick, directed by Michelle Joyner.

An audience favorite at the 2022 Edinburgh Festival Fringe, The Stones is a present-day, provocative gothic mystery by award-winning, London-based playwright/director Kit Brookman. Great Barrington Public Theater opens the company's ten-week summer season with the American premiere of the riveting new play.

After a strange epiphany, Nick leaves his job as a school teacher and breaks up with his long-term boyfriend. A reconnection with an old flame-- from whom he's kept a long-buried secret--leads to a job at a countryside estate as tutor to two beguiling young children. In his uprooted situation, the job, setting and family seem too good to be true... until ordinary stones begin to materialize around him. A fascinating, ominous mystery unfolds. Reality splinters into historical illusions with the stones as witnesses of the human record, leaving Nick and his audience to riddle: Who among us is deluded and anesthetized by modern contentment? Who is crippled by guilt and revenge--both personal and collective? And finally: How do we navigate and survive our murky, threatened future?

Brookman is a daring, gifted writer making a name in British theater circles. The GB Public's production of The Stones pairs Ryan Winkles, one of the Berkshires' finest actors, with consummate storytelling director Michelle Joyner, who saw The Stones at the 2022 Edinburgh festival. She was taken by the story's contemporary voice, sensibilities and moody atmosphere and describes it as, “A very of-the-moment tale that makes you want to pull your chair closer to the fire and listen. The pacing is tense, the mood darkly comic and spellbinding.”