Johnny Stallings
Actor · Director · Teacher · Humanist
Portland, Oregon
A Life in Full
Who Is
Johnny Stallings?
Born on August 17, 1951, in Whitefish, Montana, Johnny Stallings arrived in Portland, Oregon at age eight — and never truly left. A boy who hated school but loved to play, he grew into one of the Pacific Northwest's most quietly radical humanitarians: an actor, director, poet, and teacher who has spent decades searching for what it means to live a meaningful human life.
In his twenties, he traveled widely, living for two years in India studying with yogis — a formative immersion in silence, consciousness, and the deeper architecture of the self. He returned carrying a practice of inner listening that would color everything he built thereafter.
For over three decades, Johnny has worked at the intersection of theater, philosophy, and restorative human connection. He is the founder of Open Hearts Open Minds, a nonprofit bringing dialogue, theater, arts, and music into Oregon's prisons. He is the founder of The Open Road, a learning community that continues to publish, gather, and connect. He is, above all, a practitioner of love as discipline.
In 2024, Open Road Press published his first book: The Nonstop Love-In: poems, stories, essays & other writings — a distillation of decades of living and thinking out loud. His personal website is johnnystallings.com.