The graduate program at Yale's famed School of Drama is usually thought of as the crowning achievement in the life of a student actor and a clear highway to the summit of the profession.

	Miki Johnson, right, joins Robin Walsh, left, and Karla Boos in Quantum Theatre's "After Mrs. Rochester." Click photo for larger image. 'After Mrs. Rochester' Where: Quantum Theatre at Braddock Carnegie Library, 419 Library St., Braddock. When: Through Oct. 22; Wed.-Sat. 8 p.m., Sun. 7 p.m. Tickets: $27 ($24 Wed. and Sun.); $15 students; 412-394-3353.

So it's a little surprising to hear Mikelle (Miki) Johnson say she really just stumbled into it and she's still not sure where it might lead.

Born and raised in Akron, Johnson calls herself a "Midwestern girl." Her background in theater was scant compared to some -- one play in high school (she was the Wicked Witch of the West) and then several at Pitt, where she majored in writing. But she obviously had raw talent: in 2001, Quantum Theatre's artistic director Karla Boos cast her as the intrusive American reporter in Abi Morgan's "Splendour."

After graduating from Pitt in 2002, finding few job prospects and feeling that she liked acting and was good at it, Johnson decided to apply to graduate acting programs. But not Yale. Auditioning there was her father's idea. Like Boos, Yale saw her talent -- in fact, it was the only school that accepted her.

Boos and Johnson have stayed in touch, and Boos has now brought her back to Pittsburgh to play the young Jean Rhys in Polly Teale's "After Mrs Rochester." Boos will play Rhys in her later years.

Johnson values her time at Yale and says she learned an amazing amount. "It made me more comfortable in my own skin and more confident." But she didn't leave the program yearning to become a Broadway (or film or television) star. After graduation, she spent some time in New York and Los Angeles and didn't like either. She stayed in Nashville, working at an art camp, where she directed kids, 9-17, in productions of "The Tempest" and "Threepenny Opera."

"I feel there are other places and other pockets of people who need and want theater and where I could be happier," she says. Pittsburgh is one of those, and she hopes to stay here for a while.

But Johnson, slight, energetic and animated, doesn't seem all that concerned with definitive plans. That's fitting considering the play she's in. She's been thinking a lot about the courage it takes to "write your own life."

"After Mrs Rochester" relates the stories of Rhys' own life and of her famous "prequel" to "Jane Eyre," "Wide Sargasso Sea," which originated in Rhys' sympathy for the mysterious "madwoman in the attic" in "Jane Eyre," the first Mrs. Rochester.

"It was an epic life," Johnson says of Rhys. "The play is all about the act of bravery it takes to write down your life and to live your own life and make a story out of it."

Making a life into a story condenses, highlights and even skews perception. "The play doesn't move forward like a train," Johnson says. "It's like explosions. How your brain thinks is how this play works."

"After Mrs Rochester" is being staged in the Music Hall of the historic Braddock Carnegie Library and also features Robin Walsh as Bertha Mason (the "madwoman" from "Jane Eyre"), with Mary Rawson, Hugo Armstrong, Linda Haston, Mark Staley and Dana Hardy. The director is Rodger Henderson, who also directed Quantum's recent "The Crucible" and "Dark of the Moon."