The world premiere in Switzerland of our most well known work:

In these photos Ted & Lee fans will recognize the suspender and colors of the costumes we wore for a decade of “net casting” as Peter and Andrew.

This week Beat sent to me this short greeting from the fine theater audiences in Switzerland:

Documentary film is an art form that distills events into images, movements and highlights and let’s us feel as if perhaps we can engage in an event. The first Peace Pies and Prophets tour of 2012 in Eastern Pa was a three day event in three cities, Akron, Philadelphia and Souderton. Okay, one city, a large town and a hamlet. A marvelously disparate theater tour- from the buggies of Lancaster county, to the heightened pulse of the theater district of Philadelphia, to the sensible streets of Souderton.

A film also occasionally needs to balance between very important issues and entertainment…It’s saying “This is important people” without boring anyone….to be entertaining enough to compel us to stick with it and take stock in what the filmmaker is trying to say.

Steven Stauffer has taken 3 days in March, plus months of dreaming and planning, and distilled the celebration of community, the impulses to teach & make laughter, as well as the anxieties and hopes for the weekend and packaged it into seven minutes!

It begins to illustrate the questions and also hints at the answers to:

What do we feel strongly about?
What does our faith mean?  
Can we come together , embrace differences and… are we having fun?

Please share this film as much as you want! The theater and pie world would appreciate it.

Friends- last weekend March 9-11 Ted and Co. had an experience like no other. It was the kickoff for Peace Pies and Prophets tour. Instead of 1 or 2 actors showing up to perform a show—which is still pretty cool—actor Tim Reubke and I were joined by a film documenter Steven Stauffer, a musician, Nathan Allebach, son Derek who ran sound and video projector as well lending his strong back to “roadie” and trouble shooting jobs, a team of 8-10 volunteers, Movement Architect Scott Hackman, Christian Peacemaker Teams Outreach Coordinator Tim Nafziger —and 140 handmade pies.

The event was a participatory wonder.  Our show, I’d Like to Buy an Enemy was interspersed with a “stealth auction”, where an airhorn would go off and Tim R and I would don our special hats and auction off handcrafted pies, including three made by the winner of the Pa state pie competition in Akron Penna.

The tour was a fundraiser for Christian Peacemaker Teams and raised over $15,000 in offerings and pie auctions. Perhaps more importantly it got people talking not just about the show, but how we might effect change in our world—to “export” peacemaking to a thirsty world.

It felt like a seachange for the concept of touring, around a concept, a movement—a way to connect to something larger ourselves—which art does exceptionally well. It truly felt to us like the beginning of a movement.  A movement around peace making, subversive theater and pies—pie in some cases with great peace making stories.

We are committed to Peace Pies and Prophets Tours through 2013, if you want to join, let us know!

-Ted

The result of that conversation, as well as other encouragements began a series of interviews and two years of research.

Following the death of my partner, Lee Eshleman in the spring of 2007, I tabled the project for two years and then in 2009 began again.

I wanted a show that would make you laugh, but also make you uncomfortable at times– a tender balance.

The result is I’d Like to Buy an Enemy, a satire whose target is the use of fear in our society to control us, the use of The Other to make us afraid, how the selling of war is such a big business, and even bananas as a conflict commodity.

A good poem is sometimes the reduction or distilling of images and ideas into the sparest use of works possible. A play is sometimes 5 years of research, writing, rewriting, rehearsal, talkbacks, changes, growth, trial and error to create…
…a work still in progress. When the cast includes the writer, that work may always be in progress. It is one of the joys of writing and performing, allowing the responses of an audience shift the show.

The show I’d Like to Buy an Enemy is now part of a tour set to travel the country a least through 2013. Unfortunately the issues we address in the show aren’t going away any time soon. The tour is called The Peace Pies and Prophets Tour, premièring in Eastern PA the weekend of March 9-11, with all proceeds to benefit Christian Peacemaker Teams.

At each event, there will be live music, “The Enemy “ show and a “stealth auction” of homemade pies, many from the Mennonite communities in those areas. Now, I’m not going to brag, okay I am—these will be amazing pies, imbued with generations of love and community, inspired by men and women who know the place of pie in the “Kingdom of God”…and butter, lots of butter. We are not quite sure when an auction segment may “pop up”—hence the “stealth auction.”

Will you join us?

Friday March 9th, Akron, PA: Akron Mennonite Church

Saturday March 10th, Philadelphia, PA: Broad Street Ministry

Sunday March 11th, Souderton, PA: Souderton Mennonite Church

An evening in memory of Kathy Seamon-McGowan and in honor of all mothers and women who live with passion.

There is no admission fee for the evening. A freewill offering will be received to benefit homeless single mothers and their children.
If you or your business would enjoy the opportunity to sponsor this event, please contact Francesca Crane at Bridge of Hope.

Francesca J. Crane

Executive Director  -  Bridge of Hope Lancaster & Chester Counties

610-380-1360 extension 109

717-394-7406 extension 109

www.BridgeofHopeLCC.org

Another new beginning

We are welcoming Tim Ruebke to the company. Tim will be taking over the role created by and with Trent Wagler in I’d Like to Buy an Enemy. Trent has been removed for various infractions too complicated to go into on the web. (Just wondered if you were paying attention) No, Trent is still in good—even outstanding—standing. He is just a little too talented. His band, Steel Wheels is taking off . If you haven’t heard them live, you really must.

Tim is Executive Director of the Fairfield Center—formerly the Community Mediation center in Harrisonburg, VA—has a masters degee in Conflict Transformation from Eastern Mennonite University, acted with me in while he was in college, and is a very funny man, always a boon for this work. We are currently formulating the touring schedule for 2011 and 2012. There is a lot we could offer your organization, conference, or school.

Another new show

Jeff Raught and I were back up at Shenandoah International Playwright Retreat , in Plainwell MI. ( Yes, Shenandoah in Michigan) for a week in late March, writing and polishing What’s so Funny about Money and creating a new show The Jesus Stories. Bob Small and Kathleen Tosco are dramaturge and managing director of Shenandoah, amazing hosts, and dear friends. We are very excited about the new shows—there were many places where we laughed until it hurt. Jeff does play a mean polka. Look for these two shows on the calendar in your area.

Another new Swartz

Lastly, the newest excitement is the arrival of first grandchild, Mona Quinn, born March 7. Parents Eliot (oldest son) and Katrina are doing great—and it is pretty cool, just like they said it would be. There they are again—they’re so smart.

And yes, I have pictures…

The performance begins at 7:30pm and is free and open to the public.

Contact: randy.nyce@everence.com

Contact Email:
kay.nussbaum@comcast.net