Stan Peal
Stan grew up in a small dairy farming town in southern Wisconsin, where he was the archetypal class clown and performed puppet shows for his parents, usually while they were trying to sleep in. After studying Art, Music and Parties in high school, he miraculously got accepted into a college - Carroll College near Milwaukee, where he failed at music, so he got a theatre degree. He then moved to Minneapolis and worked in the theatre ministry. But they found him out and shunned him, so he started doing normal people theatre and met Laura Depta.
They moved to Charlotte in 2001 to be close to her family and hopefully perform with the Charlotte Rep. Awesome how that turned out.
Stan has always been an actor, but has tried to keep well-rounded by directing, set designing, sound designing and composing music. He is also a certified pizza-maker, and ordained minister, and he likes drumming in those hippy drum circles where the belly dancers go. In his spare time, he records music and draws inappropriate cartoons.
He has been writing plays since college, though he never considered it his primary focus until the last few years. He started writing short plays as a way to get involved quickly in the Charlotte theatre scene. His scripts were picked up by BareBones Theatre Group and Off-Tryon Theatre, as well as the ArtCenter in Carrboro.
In 2003 Stan was awarded an NCArts Regional Artists Grant for his script "The Friar & The Nurse," which he and his wife Laura used to launch Epic Arts Repertory Theatre, where Stan is Resident Playwright and Managing Director. Since then, Stan has premiered several of his original works in Charlotte and three in New York. He has received commissions from the Alfred P Sloan foundation through the Ensemble Studio theatre in Manhattan, and a Jerome foundation Commission and Residency through the Commonweal Theatre Company in Minnesota.
Stan and Laura live in Charlotte with their dog, two cats and a swell MRS-4 mini recording studio. After five fun-filled years at a Wachovia call center, Stan now works as a freelance writer. You can find his blog and more at www.stanpeal.com.
Stan is living the dream. Please send money.