BINGEN — Big Britches Productions opens its first production as a nonprofit organization with “The Other Place,” a psychological mystery by playwright Sharr White. The show runs May 1-16 at The Bingen Theater.
Juliana Smithton is a respected neurologist who has built her life on certainty, intellect, and control. She is at the top of her game. So when an ordinary moment during a professional presentation turns into something she can’t explain, it rattles her in a way nothing has before. What follows is a tightly wound 80 minutes in which nothing is quite what it appears, the people closest to her may not be who she thinks they are, and the audience is left assembling the pieces right alongside her. The less you know going in, the better.
“The Other Place” premiered off-Broadway in 2011, directed by Joe Mantello and starring Laurie Metcalf, who earned a Tony Award nomination when the production transferred to Broadway in 2013. Variety called the play a “drama so cleverly constructed that its true nature isn’t revealed until the final scene.”
The Village Voice described an audience that “collectively discovered they’d been had, and liked it.” One reviewer simply advised that “it’s a play best enjoyed going in cold.”
“I have been wanting to do this show for years,” said director Joe Garoutte, Executive Director of Big Britches Productions. “This is an actor’s piece. There is real work needed on stage to capture the complexities of this play. That, combined with technical storytelling elements which are dramatic and allow the viewer’s imagination to run wild, is very exciting to me.”
The cast features Shelly Peterson as Juliana, Todd Dierker as Ian, newcomer Samantha Trelstad, and Isaiah Hand. The production runs approximately 80 minutes with no intermission.
“The Other Place” marks a milestone for Big Britches Productions, which received 501(c)(3) nonprofit status in December 2025. It is the organization’s first production under its new nonprofit model, following several years of growth that saw the company expand from occasional productions to full five-show seasons drawing audiences from across the Columbia River Gorge.
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