I’m enjoying my human life on Earth!

BIG NEWS!

Open Road Pass has published my first book: The Nonstop Love-In: poems, stories, essays & other writings. To learn more about how to order your copy, click here:

https://openroadpdx.com/event/how-to-order-the-nonstop-love-in/

In the Encyclopædia Jonnica under the heading “Johnny Stallings”  it says:

Johnny Stallings. A fictional character. As Shakespeare said: “All the world’s a stage, and all the men and women merely players.” I spend a certain amount of time pretending to be Johnny Stallings. If I don’t, who will? A lot of the time, though, I feel no such responsibility or obligation.

EARLY DAYS

Kay Stallings gave birth to me on August 17, 1951, in Whitefish, Montana. Bill Stallings was my dad. I have a sister, Mary Wallace (pictured above) who is four years older than me. Our family moved from Columbia Falls, Montana to Portland, Oregon when I was eight. When I was a kid, I loved to play. I hated school.

PLAYS

For many years, when people asked me “What do you do?” I would say: “I’m an actor.” I’ve read plays, seen plays, seen films based on plays, written plays, acted in plays and directed plays. In Shakespeare’s day, I would have been called “a player.” That means something different now.

To learn more about my theater adventures inside and outside of prison walls, go to the Theater page on this website.

HIPPIE DAYS

In my twenties I travelled a lot. I lived for two years in India and studied with yogis.

BOOKS

My life feels like a dream in which I wandered into The Library and got lost. I live surrounded by books.

DIALOGUES

In 2006 I put chairs in a circle in a room inside a prison. Men came to the room and sat in the chairs. What happened next changed my life, and a lot of other lives, too. See the Dialogue page on this website.

IDEAS

For a compendium of my views, take a look at Encyclopædia Jonnica.

SPIRITUALITY

I think of “spirituality” as synonymous with “meaning.” I have strived to live a life rich in meaning. Love and Silence are important to me. I’m kind of like a Zen Buddhist, but without the Zen and without the Buddhism. See the Meditation & Mindfulness page on this website.

LOVE

I got together with Nancy Scharbach in 2006. Every day together has been a good day. I think of my life as the nonstop love-in. That’s why we came here: to love and be loved. Today is International Love Day!

PRISON

In 2006, I began doing weekly meaning-of-life dialogues at Two Rivers prison, in Umatilla, Oregon. After two years, one of the men in the dialogue circle, who was serving a life sentence, asked me if I would do a play with them. When we did Hamlet in 2008, it was the first time that inmates in an Oregon prison had performed a play by Shakespeare. More plays followed.  The most profound aspect of the whole experience was the love part. Ashley Lucas has written about the love she witnessed when she visited our program in her book Prison Theatre and the Global Crisis of Incarceration.

THE OPEN ROAD

In September of 2019 I started a new nonprofit organization: The Open Road. It’s a learning community.

A MIDSUMMER NIGHT’S DREAM IN PRISON

A Midsummer Night’s Dream in Prison, a film by Bushra Azzouz, had its World Premiere at Cinema 21 in Portland, Oregon on August 7, 2022. It’s a documentary about a play I directed at Two Rivers prison, in Umatilla, Oregon in 2010.

OPEN ROAD PRESS HAS PUBLISHED MY FIRST BOOK! 

Order your copy of The Nonstop Love-In today!

https://openroadpdx.com/event/how-to-order-the-nonstop-love-in/