When I arrived April 25^th, there was still about 2 feet of snow on the baseball field, enough to depress any baseball fan.

However! The students and faculty at Mennonite Collegiate Institute and fine folks of Gretna provided one of my favorite performance experiences of the past 5 years. I performed in Buhler Hall a new performance hall listed as one of the attractions of the town on their official website.

On Friday I rehearsed the one act play, “Applications” with a dozen MCI students. The play is set in God’s office on the sixth day of creation. God is beat, ready for a day off when Gabriel announces “this is the day we are taking applications for the human body”—and various parts of the body show up, filled out applications in hand.

[The kidneys]

GOD: Now, this says you mostly work in jantorial services.

KIDNEY 1: Yes, that’s right, we find dirt, we get rid of it and move on.

KIDNEY 2: ——–Yes, that’s right, we find dirt, we get rid of it and move on

[The appendix]

GOD: This application appears to be incomplete. What is it that you do, Mr..[checking the form] ….Appendix?

APPENDIX: Well you know, it’s not so much what I do ..it’s more of a  .. Well, I’m not what you would call a specialist. I rather try and be a person for all tasks..a little bit of this …a little bit of that…

GOD: Sort of a Jack of all trades?

APPENDIX: I could do that, I could be a jack.

GOD: It’s just a figure of speech.

[The sense of humor]

GOD: You have the application? [ Is handed the application]

Sense of Humor: Knock knock.

GOD: What?

S of H: Knock knock.

God: [ reluctantly ] Who’s there?

S of H: It’s me, I’m standing right here. See that’s a visual joke..

GOD: I can see that.

S of H: Right. Oh good one. Very witty, very witty.

[God is studying the form] You didn’t fill this out at all.

S of H: I know.

GOD: You just drew pictures of cows smoking cigarettes.

S of H: Funny, isn’t it?

…and others.  The Application was great fun to perform with kids who were ready to play and contributed comedy beyond the script–a gift for a playwright. The play was the opening act for a performance of “Laughter is Sacred Space” which was a delight to perform in the attraction number 9 on the website….Buhler Hall.  I love prop closets and Buhler has a good one. Rick and the tech crew helped me build a set that worked just fine:

Thanks to the warm and gracious folks of Gretna, Manitoba…Peter and Shanda, Rick, Tammy, Darryl  and students of CMI where theater is alive and well.

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I wrote a book which was published last year. This is the cover: 

The photo on top is of me and my brother Tim, embraced by our grandmother. It is emblematic of my childhood memories. The photo on the bottom is 50 years later. It is a close-up, with high-end calibration and with lots of pixels thingies. It was taken by Lowell Brown of Lancaster county Pa and if you are in that area and need a photographer, call Lowell. The shot is of Schmidick, a character from “Just Give “em the News”, our Christmas show, written with actor-writer-composer Jeff Raught.  Schmidick is a shepherd, one who is confronted by the angel Gabriel to announce the birth of Jesus…

Gabe: Hark!

Schmidick:  Hark , whatta ya mean hark?

Gabe: It means …hark. I have something important to say.

Schmidick:  You could have said listen up, pay attention…but no, you went with “hark”

Gabe: Seemed to add a little zip.

Schmidick : Zip, that’s what you thought.

Gabe: Okay

Schmidick : This is a very pragmatic operation, we don’t have much time for zip.

Gabe: Right, got it, no zip.

When Schmidick was conceived in 2009, he seemed to want a cigar in his hand. The cigar became part of his tool kit. When it is tucked in the corner of his mouth, the words come out differently. It becomes a pointer, a way to emphasis an important piece of dialogue. It was crucial for Schmidick to be rough around the edges, a survivor in a hardscrabble existence on the edges of society. The cigar is a prop, symbolizing that the characters in our precious and sacred stories are not cuddly, safe or particularly clean.

Schmidick: Tough being a shepherd, lots of animosity toward those that follow the woolen path….so don’t be bringing something in here we can’t all participate in.

I have never smoked a cigarette in my life. I have smoked, I think, three cigars—all in honor of, and in the presence of the late Mike Yaconelli, one of my all-time heroes.

So it is sad to me that the book is, in fact, judged by the cover, because of a character who truly wants to participate in the kingdom that Jesus is bringing, a character who knows he’ll never be accepted in the present society.

This is the good news. Jesus has come. He is bringing a new kingdom…for all.  Even the cigar-smoking shepherd.

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TED: And so the son took the money.

DOUG: I hope he invested well.

TINA: Mutual funds.

DOUG: Something stable, yes.

TED: No.

TINA: No?

TED: No.

DOUG: Alas.

TED: ...alas no. He wasted it…

TINA:  Hedge funds.

DOUG: Ah.

TED: He wasted it on wild living.

DOUG: A life of lust, debauchery and tax collecting.

TED: Again, there was no evidence of the collecting of taxes.

TINA: But there was sin.

TED: Yes.

DOUG: So, normal stuff…gluttony, drunkenness…women…drunken gluttonness women..

TED: Yes…normal stuff. Then…the money ran out.

DOUG: It always does…the money.

TINA: Runs out.

TED: There was a famine…

DOUG: They had eaten all the food…the glutteness drunken women……..

…and so on..

Several days later Tina sent me this email: A friend  shared with her about a conversation she had afterward with her mom.  The conversation went something like this:

Mom: So how was church?

ME: Good

Mom: How was Tina’s Brother?

Me: Good

Mom: Was it funny?

ME: Ya it was funny.

Mom:  Did you laugh?

ME: Yep.

Mom: You laughed in church?

ME: Yes Mom, I laughed in church.

Mom: Did other people laugh?

Mom: Yes other people laughed.

Mom: In church?

Me: Yes Mom other people laughed in church.

Mom: And this was the sermon?

Me: yes

Mom: hum

I’m so glad I can talk to my mom about spiritual matters.

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Thoughts that run across my mind:

Life should imitate art

I’ve reached 56 years old, and am trying to be more mindful and reflective of moments while they are happening.

In a radio interview recently I was lauded for my ability to be fully present on stage, which is one the building blocks of good acting. It was nice to hear, and I wasn’t unhappy the interview was widely dispersed.

Soon after I was in conversation with someone who heard the interview and the issue of being fully present came up.…I realized I am perhaps very good onstage, in regard to presence—it’s the rest of life that’s problematic.

I’m lousy at celebrations, rituals and stopping to enjoy and appreciate those around me.  It’s too tempting to see each moment as simply the next step to….

…what exactly?

Another step in the career? Another product to market?  I have spoken around the theme of theater being the perfect metaphor for faith and a life lived fully.  Maybe I need to listen to this actor guy I resemble.

Birth and death

There have been thousands of published responses to Sandy Hook this weekend and week. I’m not sure any more are necessary from me; several responses I have appreciated:

Huffington Post: On Massacres, Masculinity, Human Rights and Gun Rights

The Gimp Goes Shopping: Evil next door

Rachel Held Evans: God can’t be kept out

Mothers

On this week  before Christmas, celebrating birth,  I would like to celebrate mothers, mine—Ruth Swartz, mother-in-law—Blanch Althouse, my wife Susan, daughter in-law Katrina: and Megan Rosenwink, my Administrative Organizer, who delivered on Sunday morning at 12:30, Francine Grace. Megan suspected she was coming early, and by God she did.

Somehow we will carry on until your return, Megan. Blessings!

Image source

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They are more common now across the US, but in 97, especially in the lower states, not so much. Something happens to me when I put this hat on, it somehow feels as if my IQ drops precipitously, perhaps around 60-80 points when the hat slips over my ears.

Ingrid and I both wore them for DoveTale, two shepherds, Egan and Maggie. They were Irish – because the accents are so much fun – and loveable, but my character was, how shall we say, less than intellectually vigorous.  It was always a delight to play this scene, broad comedy with numerous opportunities to confound Lee’s Gabriel. I wore the darker hat, I believe mostly because Ingrid’s dark long hair contrasted better with the lighter hat.

When Lee and I wrote The Creation Chronicles, stories from the Old Testament or Hebrew scriptures, we wanted to deal with Jeremiah or another of the major prophets. When I began reading Jeremiah, I reached Jer. 13 and started laughing out loud—I could hear Jeremiah’s voice in my head recounting God’s instruction to “wear these shorts, but don’t worsh ‘em. “; of course he needed a hat. The logical choice was the same hat, but the lighter one, Ingrid’s hat.

For a couple of months after the DoveTale tour, when I was again playing Jeremiah or Marty, the hat would smell like Ingrid, a nice memory of the Christmas season. Once 4 years or so ago, I was offstage getting ready for the Jeremiah scene, hat in hand, when I notice a long dark hair nestled in the hat, definitely not mine.

In addition, Marty—from the Marty and Mel monologues—also uses this hat. He is from the tribe of Jeremiah, with similar speech patterns and the hat, I’m sure passed down for many generations.

Jeff Raught and I put the Jeremiah monologue into the show “Tattered and Worn”, I include the piece in “The Big Story” and this year in the newest show “Laughter is Sacred Space”, I again use Jeremiah, plus Egan, the Irish shepherd – and so I get to wear both hats in that show.

It has become one of my treasured props, a shortcut to character recovery, fifteen years of history and memories all wrapped up in wool with tassels.

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My answer was in part: “ You never know when God might show up.”

“So why do you need to go to church to find that?”

Me: “Because, I like gathering with people who are looking for the same thing and you don’t get that without showing up.”

I walked into church this spring, to see floating fabric rippling in the currents of air. They were strung from the front of the sanctuary to the back, drawing your eye up and then toward the peak at the front of the church. They were sheer; orange, red, yellow, and gold. It was Pentecost season and the fabric was emblematic of the spirit moving in our midst. Art and metaphor have the power to engage us in ways few other avenues can claim. We’ve heard that before, they sound like nice words, but what does it mean?

Theater, is, at it’s roots about metaphor. It’s an angled mirror to greater meaning that we may miss looking directly at an issue, problem, or question. A story well told, plus your imagination, will trigger deeper consciousness. We are wired for story; we are wired to appreciate beauty.

These fabrics reminded me each week of the possibility that the spirit may infiltrate my life …fire and wind and surprise.

A key element in theater, art and especially humor is surprise. The next time you laugh, reflect on why—there’s a good chance surprise is a part.

Surprise…. Coming back to these fabrics though. I thought they all looked a little familiar, reminded me of something I’d seen in a different context. The flow, the colors….It wasn’t for a couple of weeks until I found out why.

These metaphors, the art that reminded me of the Holy Spirit, of a presence that comforted and agitated, I had seen them before. They were the belly dancing veils hand made by Rose Shenk and Terry Roth members of my church. Surprise.

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My experience over the years with playwriting is to overload the writing portion, tweak until the last minute and then allow experience and intimate knowledge of the material to guide the acting portion of the show. During rehearsal and performance — there nestled in the back of my mind — is always the writer’s voice. Assessing the beat, the line, the scene.

It has been satisfying to see people respond to the show.  There is laughter and tears; the best moments are when audience members find themselves in the moments of grief or loss, as well as moments of resolve.

What actors and writers want to hear mostly is– thank you. We never get tired of praise, indeed without a certain amount of it, it might be impossible to get back up onstage and expose yourself once again. When a thank is rooted in the speakers heart, it reaffirms the notion actors and writers are grasping for something greater than themselves, something pointing beyond the words on the page, the lines delivered on stage.

As one woman responded after a Laughter show, “Thank you for opening up your experience, your questions, your journey in theater to us. It brought healing to me, and I am sure to many others.  Damn that I didn’t bring tissues as the director suggested in the playbill! (I laughed a lot during it, too.)  I am glad to see where you and your team are taking theater.”

This show is the most personal of any I have ever written, and will perhaps ever write again, and it is profoundly moving and healing to laugh, cry and feel together with audiences to this point.

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Most etymologists, those who study where words come from, believe that the word humor is derived from the same root as in the word human, humility and — my favorite — humus, meaning “of the earth, connected to the dirt, soil” — that which makes things grow, where things are real, gritty and full of nutrients. To laugh is to be grounded in the best possible way. A sense of humor is a proclamation that I am fully human.

It is a sacred space.

On a path to be a Mennonite pastor, I had gone back to school at age 30 in order to prepare for seminary, along with three small children, a supportive wife and a congregation sponsoring us. While in undergrad I took an acting class, and fell in love with this art form.

When actors are free to experiment it can be the most exhilarating place on earth. Acting onstage can be like falling in love, when the creative spirit jumps out of you and begins dancing with the spirits of the others in the scene, when the sparks are almost visible, when you can feel the cords of energy connecting you to your acting partner, when you feel the audience leaning forward, wanting to share in the same energy. Where you come off stage and ask, with wonder and awe, “What just happened there? And when can we do it again, feel that again?”

In those acting classes and productions, I discovered the mystical and spiritual life for the first time. Theater helped me to see the world of the invisible, showed that forces greater than ourselves are at work and play in the world. I had discovered who I was; I was an actor.

At around that same time I met Lee Eshleman, who became my comedic soul mate, and for the next 20 years we created six full-length theatrical and comedy shows, carved out a business and a full-time living in the performing arts — a task of love, sweat and determination.

We were exploring life and sacred texts with an eye toward what was askew, peculiar and above all — where was the funny? Always, what was funny? It was a celebration of laughter as a healing art, a teaching method, an absolute affirmation that humor is a profound and indispensable societal lubricant.

Much of our material was mining the humor in the biblical story. We felt if you could find the humor inherent there, you would discover a deeper human story, and then perhaps come to a greater understanding of the ongoing dynamic, frustrating, mystifying, relationship between God and humankind.

Lee made me laugh more than anyone ever had before. It was the genesis of our relationship and the glue that enabled us to endure conflicts in creative decision making, not to mention, some years, spending more time together than we did with our spouses.

Transferring to the stage what made the two of us laugh was the simple formula of writing and performing live. We were each other’s incubator partner, if it made us laugh, there was an excellent chance it would do so for an audience.

Laughter was our method of illuminating both our relationship with the people we met and performed for, but also a way to understand the world, as well as God — until Lee’s suicide in 2007.

And the laughter pretty much stopped for me.

Lee had been dealing with depression pretty much the entire time of our friendship and creative partnership, and that spring he lost the battle. Lee’s struggle was a paradox, someone who made so many people laugh and consequently embrace their full humanness, had profound doubts about his worthiness and connection to the God we wrote so much about.

His death destroyed the business and cast into doubt whether I could continue writing and performing for a living. It was difficult to envision being able to induce laughter from the stage, but it was equally difficult to envision a life without theater.

I would say, five years later, I’m certainly not an expert on healing or being a survivor of suicide. I will say that theater and art still hold keys to my identity and recovery. In those five years I wrote plays, almost manically creating and producing, paradoxically both running from and embracing grief, anger and guilt. Not coincidently perhaps, it produced some of my best work.

The laughter, like a dormant perennial, began to return.

Laughter never stopped being sacred space; it just took me a while to find that space again.

Art, theater and laughter were the barometers and light posts back from my own depression and grief. While humor remains the launch point for all of my work, it’s different now. There is a depth, a shadow, a perception only earned through grief and determination.

Loss changes you — grief changes. In the words of a character of mine written in 2008, “In this life there is grace, but never enough … there is peace but never enough … there is love … but never enough … but we take what we have … which is never enough … we break it and we pass it out.”

Lee used to say laughter is a sign that we are never too far from the love of God. I believe he was right.

*This blog entry appeared September 20, 2012 in the Huffington Post.

Purchase Ted’s book Laughter is Sacred Space or experience the live performance by inquiring about bringing a show to your area.

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Live theater is an experience that can’t be duplicated. When an audience and actor share the same physical space you have the possibility of intimacy, impossible in TV or film.  When someone makes a decision to attend a live theater event, they are making an emotional commitment to being involved in the story, the imagination of the writer, the vision of the director, and in the lives of the actors.

Actors are a strange lot. Some people might think an actor is someone who puts on something in order to hide. But in reality, an actor peels something away, revealing just what is inside or underneath — an often exhilarating and simultaneously wrenching experience. And this experience is heightened when the story they are attempting to tell has actually happened, as honesty and real life compels us to be pulled in further.

The audiences Lee and I performed in front of have been a part of that true story. Our audiences, our  “other acting partners” have shared in the 20-year relationship between Lee and me. Theater performers create a relationship with audiences to the point where they think they know us. And if we have done our job with integrity and honesty, they do.

Lee and I worked so very hard to allow you into our worlds, because theater can’t be done any other way. And when Lee took his life the grief and mourning reverberated throughout the communities who thought they knew us personally . . . and you did.

This tour is, in part, a gift back to the people who knew us, supported us, lifted us through laughter, applause and warmth. Each of us has to make our own journey through grief and mine desperately needed the healing of theater and the best of what this art form can give — community, spiritual connectedness, a sense we are in this painful journey together.

Writing and performing Laughter is Sacred Space is part of my healing. I would like it to be part of yours.

One way we hope to invite you into the story is that this show will conclude with a time of “Q & A,” a chance for you to ask questions or share stories. On one occasion, a young woman, who had seen Lee and me many times, asked, not about periods of grief, or how I dealt with moving on from trauma and suicide, but rather, “Could you do June Bug Reunions?” Lee and I would often open our comedy shows with a very silly sketch, imitating different animals at class reunions. The June Bugs section was simply the two of us scurrying onstage, buzzing frantically, bumping into walls and furniture and then spilling onto our backs, kicking our feet feebly as we “died.” I was delighted to bring our past into the present and do a solo version of the inept June bugs, Frank and Bill, for the first and, to this date, only time.

It was my favorite question of the evening. The laughter she gave me in that solo June Bug Reunion was, for both of us, a sacred space.

And my hope through this tour is that many more of us can share in the same.

Book a Show

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Fish-Eyes, written with Lee Eshleman in 1994, owes a debt of inspiration to Tom Key, Russell Treyz and Clarence Jordan. I am privileged on September 29 to be part of Clarence Jordan Symposium. It is celebrating the 100th “birthday” of Jordan and an appreciation of his work. Clarence Jordan was a innovative progressive thinker and life example creating Koinonia Farms, a racial integrated farming community in Americus, Georgia.

Tom Key, who became a friend a number of years ago, will be there to perform Cotton Patch. Our friend Shane Claiborne will also be there, plus people I’ve wanted to meet, including Rosalynn Carter and her husband Jimmy, Phillip Gully, David Hooker and others. I am providing “Moments of Whimsy” between speakers all day and look forward to honoring the memory of Jordan’s life and work by performing pieces inspired by his style of writing!

Learn more on the Clarence Jordan Symposium website, and Like the symposium on Facebook!

image source

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