I feel that I am at something of a pivot point in my year, looking back on the academic year and looking ahead to things that are looming. Those of you who have followed this blog the last few years can see how much my attention has been drawn toward my theatre endeavors. The window that this blog provides into my life doesn’t well capture the fullness of what I do each week. Frankly, I’m more interested talking about theatre than I am the daily things that go with my job as a college professor. While I find my academic work meaningful, these days I don’t find it nearly as interesting to write about. I enjoy reflecting on what I’m doing in theatre. And what a busy year it has been! What have I done?
- This year I audited two theatre classes at ACU, an intermediate acting class with Dawne Swearingen Meeks and a Shakespeare course with Joey Banks. These courses have introduced me to some of the techniques that professional actors employ when working on characters and performance. I am about to retire the beat book I created for my courses this academic year, a book that is filled with monologues, duo scenes, and performance notes for class productions, including an immersive, abridged production of Romeo and Juliet that I am performing with other ACU theatre students tonight as our final “exam.” It has been a thrill being in these classes. I’m so grateful for the hospitality of the ACU theatre department in welcoming me to learn alongside their students. I’m eager to do more in the coming year.
- In December I played the role of Ebenezer Scrooge in a live radio production of “A Texas Christmas Carol.” I’ve been a fan and collector of oldtime radio theatre since elementary school, so it was such a privilege to get to perform alongside other voice actors in this production.
- In April, I performed the role of Martin Dysart in the Abilene Community Theatre production of Equus. As intimidating as this play and particular role are to perform, I was so pleased with how our production turned out.
I’m fortunate for the opportunities I have had to make theatre a part of my life this year. Speaking confessionally here, however, over the last year I’ve felt something of a disconnect between the things that I am doing in theatre and my actual career as a professor of Christian ethics. Each day I come to my office. I teach classes. I read. I serve on a variety of committees at our university, and I continue in my role as ACU’s Faculty Athletic Representative. Over the last year theatre has provided an oasis for me. Theatre is a retreat from my academic work, not an extension of it. Looking ahead, however, I cannot help but feel that this summer marks something of a convergence of my theatrical and academic worlds.
I’ve been cast in two shows this summer. In June, I’ll be performing the role of Mr. Mayor in the Paramount Theatre production of Seussical. In July, I’ll be performing the role of Tom Hawkins in Obsidian Theatre Company‘s inaugural production of The Prom. I am so thrilled by the opportunity to perform in both shows. These shows are fun, and their respective tones mark a real departure from things I’ve done recently. We began Seussical rehearsals this week. This cast is younger than any I’ve worked with over the last few years. Indeed, I’m quite literally the senior citizen of this stunning cohort. In addition to all of the theatre students from our local universities, this 30+ cast includes several high school, middle school, and elementary-aged performers that are going to be phenomenal. This show is going to sell a lot of tickets, to be sure.
I’m hoping to blog more regularly this summer about both productions that I’m in. But what does Seussical have to do with my work as a Christian ethicist? This is a question I think about with many of the theatre things I’ve done the last couple years–Sweeney Todd, Legally Blonde, Equus, and the like. This summer I’m finding the connections between the productions I’m in and what I’m thinking about in my academic work are more tangible. Seussical is a fantastical stage production, a mashup of Dr. Seuss characters and stories that is propelled along by a banger musical score. It is a show about imagination. It is also a show about the inestimable worth of those people in the world who are too often overlooked, dismissed and rejected because they are different. Initially when the Paramount announced Seussical as their summer production, I was disappointed. I viewed the show as a light and frothy diversion that, while fun, was not “serious” theatre. Reflecting more on the show in our present moment, I feel differently. I love that we are telling this story at this particular moment when our national politics has veered toward the xenophobic. What would it look like to be a people whose first posture toward the alien, the stranger, and those on the margins is one of charity? How do we become people whose first instinct is to recognize the unconditional worth of each and every person, however small, and to feel obligated to protect such people from the harm caused by those who deny this basic truth?
Thus the convergence of my worlds. This year I received a summer research grant that is funding my academic work. Next week I leave for a research trip that will take me to the Fred Rogers Centre in Latrobe, PA. I’ve long been a fan of Fred Rogers and his iconic PBS television series, Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood. My research on Fred Rogers this summer will have me digging into the archive of Rogers’s correspondence, private papers, sermons, and production notes to explore more about the theological motivations that shaped his work with children and–more to the unique focus of my research–adults. Like Seussical, Fred Rogers envisions a world that elevates imagination, that leads with charity and that recognizes the unconditional worth of each person in all their uniqueness. I think Fred Rogers would have loved Seussical. I’m excited that while playing alongside other actors to tell this story that I’ll be studying and writing about a man who devoted much of his adult life creating media that was saying much the same thing.
As we get further into the summer I’ll have much more to say about The Prom. This post has gotten long, so I’ll close with this. The one word that best describes my experience in the Abilene theatre community these last two years has been hospitality. I have felt welcomed into unfamiliar spaces and permitted to form relationships with college students, men, and women who share a common love for theatre. The theatre community in Abilene is a welcoming space, for some people much more so than those communities that I serve in my job. Our churches and Christian universities can do much better. Thanks to those theatre people who are showing us how it is done.