Born and raised in Presque Isle, Maine, John Cariani did his first work in theater in the public schools of his home town; sang in the chorus of a community theater production of Fiddler on the Roof, and worked a day job as a landscaper in Aroostook County. His first play, Almost, Maine, prremiered at Portland Stage Company. In other words, when he writes about life in The Pine Tree State, he comes at his subject with an insider’s knowledge. He also graduated from Amherst College in 1991.
Cariani majored in History at Amherst, but the lure of the theater overpowered his original plans for a teaching career. Following graduation, he spent three years as an acting intern at StageWest in Springfield, Massachusetts. His next move took him to New York, where he snagged various roles in theater and television, notably several appearances on the crime series, Law and Order.
His major break as an actor came in 2004, when he was cast in the role of Motel in a Broadway revival of Fiddler on the Roof. This performance earned him a Tony nomination and won him the 2004 Outer Critics Circle Award for Best Featured Actor in a Musical. (The Outer Critics Circle is made up of reviewers who write for publications outside New York City.)
It was also in 2004 that Almost, Maine had its premiere production in Portland, a stroke of good fortune that turned into a nerve-wracking ordeal. Cariani’s dual commitments as actor and playwright required him to shuttle back and forth between Broadway and Forest Avenue, an experience that he remembers with mixed feelings. As he told interviewer T.J. Fitzgerald in Broadway World.com, “[M]y focus was pretty split for a while and I’m not very good at multi-tasking, so I was pretty tired, there, for a few weeks. And that’s my biggest memory of 2004—being totally beat.” Two years later, in January, 2006, the play moved to New York where it opened Off-Broadway to warmly welcoming reviews, with the New York Times noting “its whimsical approach to the joys and perils of romance.”
Cariani’s second play, Cul de Sac, opened five months later, in May of 2006, also Off-Broadway. A darker work than Almost, Maine, it was described by The Times as “charming” and “witty,” but also, “macabre.”
In Almost, Maine Cariani writes about a slice of American life rarely glimpsed on the New York stage: the people of small-town, far-northern New England, whose existence is shaped by a harsh but beautiful environment.
Love / Sick, written later than Last Gas, was produced at Portland Stage in the spring of 2013 and here at The Public Theatre in October of the same year. It was subsequently staged in New York at Royal Family in 2015.
Last Gas was first produced at Portland Stage Company in 2010, revived at the Stonington Opera House in 2013, and staged again in 2014 at the Geva Theatre Center in Rochester, New York.
Cariani has also had a successful acting career in film and on television. He has performed with Robert DeNiro in Showtime, Christopher Walken in Scotland, PA, and Ed Asner in Elephant Sighs. On TV, he has been featured in the widely praised series, Homeland, and has made frequent appearances on The Onion News Network, and Law and Order.
Shaped, but not warped. Many American dramatists have looked at small-town or rural life and seen mostly violence and depravity. In Desire under the Elms, Eugene O’Neill shows us a New England farm family devastated by incest and murder. Tennessee Williams paints a sardonic portrait of arson and adultery at a Mississippi cotton gin in 27 Wagons Full of Cotton. And in Buried Child and The Curse of the Starving Class Sam Shepard depicts rural families in Illinois and California blasted by infanticide, alcoholism, and greed. North, south, east, and west, rural America has appeared to many of its most important playwrights as a gallery of empty dreams and twisted passions.
Cariani is having none of this. Though far from perfect, the inhabitants of Almost, Maine are fundamentally decent souls, seeking human connection amid the lonely vastness of the north woods. As the playwright told Broadway World.com, “Almost, Maine was written for northern Maine and for the people who are from there. And—I think most of the people up there are surprised by that. And relieved that I didn’t make fun of them (or the town) in my play!”
On the contrary, the play confirms Cariani’s description of Presque Isle: “The sky is big. Lots of farms. Geat people. Great, great, killer winters. Lots of space. And lots to do. Great schools. Great churches.” The dramatist sums up his view of the characters in his play in a note he provides for actors performing the work: “And finally—and most important—the people of Almost, Maine are honest and true. They are not cynical. They are smart. They wonder about things.”
Cariani majored in History at Amherst, but the lure of the theater overpowered his original plans for a teaching career. Following graduation, he spent three years as an acting intern at StageWest in Springfield, Massachusetts. His next move took him to New York, where he snagged various roles in theater and television, notably several appearances on the crime series, Law and Order.
His major break as an actor came in 2004, when he was cast in the role of Motel in a Broadway revival of Fiddler on the Roof. This performance earned him a Tony nomination and won him the 2004 Outer Critics Circle Award for Best Featured Actor in a Musical. (The Outer Critics Circle is made up of reviewers who write for publications outside New York City.)
It was also in 2004 that Almost, Maine had its premiere production in Portland, a stroke of good fortune that turned into a nerve-wracking ordeal. Cariani’s dual commitments as actor and playwright required him to shuttle back and forth between Broadway and Forest Avenue, an experience that he remembers with mixed feelings. As he told interviewer T.J. Fitzgerald in Broadway World.com, “[M]y focus was pretty split for a while and I’m not very good at multi-tasking, so I was pretty tired, there, for a few weeks. And that’s my biggest memory of 2004—being totally beat.” Two years later, in January, 2006, the play moved to New York where it opened Off-Broadway to warmly welcoming reviews, with the New York Times noting “its whimsical approach to the joys and perils of romance.”
Cariani’s second play, Cul de Sac, opened five months later, in May of 2006, also Off-Broadway. A darker work than Almost, Maine, it was described by The Times as “charming” and “witty,” but also, “macabre.”
In Almost, Maine Cariani writes about a slice of American life rarely glimpsed on the New York stage: the people of small-town, far-northern New England, whose existence is shaped by a harsh but beautiful environment.
Love / Sick, written later than Last Gas, was produced at Portland Stage in the spring of 2013 and here at The Public Theatre in October of the same year. It was subsequently staged in New York at Royal Family in 2015.
Last Gas was first produced at Portland Stage Company in 2010, revived at the Stonington Opera House in 2013, and staged again in 2014 at the Geva Theatre Center in Rochester, New York.
Cariani has also had a successful acting career in film and on television. He has performed with Robert DeNiro in Showtime, Christopher Walken in Scotland, PA, and Ed Asner in Elephant Sighs. On TV, he has been featured in the widely praised series, Homeland, and has made frequent appearances on The Onion News Network, and Law and Order.
Shaped, but not warped. Many American dramatists have looked at small-town or rural life and seen mostly violence and depravity. In Desire under the Elms, Eugene O’Neill shows us a New England farm family devastated by incest and murder. Tennessee Williams paints a sardonic portrait of arson and adultery at a Mississippi cotton gin in 27 Wagons Full of Cotton. And in Buried Child and The Curse of the Starving Class Sam Shepard depicts rural families in Illinois and California blasted by infanticide, alcoholism, and greed. North, south, east, and west, rural America has appeared to many of its most important playwrights as a gallery of empty dreams and twisted passions.
Cariani is having none of this. Though far from perfect, the inhabitants of Almost, Maine are fundamentally decent souls, seeking human connection amid the lonely vastness of the north woods. As the playwright told Broadway World.com, “Almost, Maine was written for northern Maine and for the people who are from there. And—I think most of the people up there are surprised by that. And relieved that I didn’t make fun of them (or the town) in my play!”
On the contrary, the play confirms Cariani’s description of Presque Isle: “The sky is big. Lots of farms. Geat people. Great, great, killer winters. Lots of space. And lots to do. Great schools. Great churches.” The dramatist sums up his view of the characters in his play in a note he provides for actors performing the work: “And finally—and most important—the people of Almost, Maine are honest and true. They are not cynical. They are smart. They wonder about things.”