I was recently a guest writer for Miranda A. Uyeh's To Be a Person. I wrote the piece before and after my performance at a chapel for my alma mater, George Fox University. You can read the article here.

I LOVED the Broadway production of Fiddler on the Roof. 

The only way it was "modernized" (usually done by adding expletives, etc.) was a brilliant envelope: They had action at the beginning and end which compels us to consider sharing the burden of those under oppression. For the Jewish people of Anatevka, where the musical takes place, it is the pogrom that sends them away. For Christians in ISIS occupied territories today it is the nun.

Fiddler was first produced on Broadway in 1964, and the first person cast in the production was Austin Pendleton, who I interviewed in grad school. It held the record for the longest running Broadway show by the time the first production closed ten years later. This is the sixth Broadway production, and it's been performed all over the world, with an astonishing 1,300 performances in Japan. I know I sang "Sunrise, Sunset" in elementary school, though I can't recall the context. 

I think it's a perennial favorite for the same reason Downton Abbey was so popular that it's been shown in every television market on earth. Both portray the tension between tradition and modernity. Proponents for keeping tradition are overjoyed because it shows the need for traditions. As Tevye says, "Remove tradition and we're as shaky as a fiddler on a roof!" Those that want to see traditions changed for a better world love it because they see how progressive ideas take hold.

Fiddler even has a solution for how to determine which traditions to keep and which to leave behind. At Tzeitle and Motel's wedding Perchik asks if any of the young women would like to dance with him. This is unheard of in their culture and his request is called sin. Perchik asks the rabbi if it is sin. Is it forbidden in the Good Book? The rabbi can't think of anything that forbids dancing, and so they dance. Had the rabbi been given a moment to think and pray it might have come to him that throughout The Song of Solomon the phrase recurs: "Don’t excite love, don’t stir it up, until the time is ripe—and you’re ready." (The Message) Not that I'm condemning all dancing. There was a saying among Christians when I was growing up: No premarital sex because it could lead to dancing. My point is that young people should be encouraged to keep their heads clear so they can hear the Lord's call to marriage and not rush where their hormones are leading the way. 

After my performance of Beyond the Chariots in St. Louis I answered questions, and one was from a mother with a couple of teenaged daughters wanting to go into the arts professionally. She asked what is one thing I would recommend for them. I recommended getting plugged into a Christ-centered, Bible believing congregation. Without a foundation whatever faith structure has been built in their lives will be in grave danger of falling. I added another: Read the Bible cover to cover every year. Without a solid foundation in the Good Book everything will sound good enough. 

I was a sociology/social work major at George Fox University, and my mentor, Mike Allen, taught a concept that has been a guiding light for me along the way: Cultural relativity is fine, so long as it lines up with biblical absolutes. 

One of my favorite moments in the production was when they celebrated Sabbath. As they lit their candles the walls of their home flew up revealing all the other families of Anatevka and all over the world lighting their candles and welcoming the Lord's presence into their day of rest. It highlighted the power of community in using traditions to keep us close to the Lord.

Christians should know:
*Some honest conversations with God, like "With Your help, we're starving to death!"
*A couple of sexual innuendos
*Some smooching to celebrate an engagement
*Hope expressed that the Messiah will come at some point in the future

On October 23 at Westchester Chapel I reported on recent ministry opportunities in Taiwan, Singapore, Oregon and his recent performance in the film The Screenwriters.  For photos from the Swingles outreach in Asia visit SwinglesInAsia2011.Shutterfly.com, and for more stories visit blog.richdrama.com (September and October 2011).

I'm on the campus of George Fox University, where my play The Acts is being featured for Homecoming and my 20th reunion.

I get to talk after my performances about how an education at George Fox helped prepare me for full-time work in the performing arts. I actually had several epiphanies that I hadn't thought about for a while: saw my first one-man play ( Curt Cloninger) here; saw my second one-man play ( Roger Nelson) with a group from George Fox; my stint in the Players was basically a prototype for what I do now; a chapel speaker invited us to walk to the front if we were willing to go anywhere for the Lord. One of the theatre profs, Rhett Luedtke, said at our Players dinner that they focus on preparing Servant Storytellers. When I was a student that term wasn't used, but that was exactly how we were being prepared 20 years ago.

When I was in college, over 20 years ago, Curt Cloninger, pictured here with Patricia Mauceri and myself, performed his one-man plays God Views and Red Letter Edition in our chapel at what was then George Fox College (now University). It was the first time I'd ever seen a one-man play, and something inside of me leapt!  "I can do that!" I told myself, and here I am having made a career out of it since 1995.  

Seeing Curt perform Witnesses at the TAM Conservatory I was inspired all over again!  His commitment to the characters he portrays, and the fun he has with the audience and with the storytelling, the surprises he plants within the piece all pushed me to take my own work to yet another level.

It's also my prayer that Curt inspires some TAM students to take the plunge and enter into this incredibly challenging and profoundly rewarding work.

The students here at Christian Clearwater College look out over Tampa Bay for their meals. How cool is that?

Not as cool as what happened last night: At the beginning of my Big Fish Little Worm performance I told the campus how I walked forward after a chapel speaker at my alma mater, George Fox University, invited us to show the Lord that we'd go anywhere He called us. I told the audience that on my walk to the altar I told God I'd be glad to go anywhere, but put in a request that it not be a big city. For 16 years I have LOVED living in New York City, the largest in the US.

We were having lunch in the pizza parlor where I ate many lunches as a student of Phoenix High School, Phoenix, Oregon, a town which had a population of 2,000 when I was a kid. Who should be having lunch there but Jon Davis, the lead elder at the Beijing International Christian Fellowship, who arranged for me to perform an excerpt from Beyond the Chariots there during the Olympics!

Joyce and I went to bed at about 10pm, and just before midnight Joyce asked if I was okay. She thought I was sobbing, but I was laughing my head off thinking about the chances we would have connected with Jon where we did. She woke up thinking of the same thing, just before my uncontainable giggles.

Now us theatre folk aren't known for our mathematical prowess, but if someone were going to calculate the probability of our encounter with Jon they'd have to consider the following:
http://maps.google.com/maps?f=d&source=s_d&saddr=10036&daddr=97535+to:Beijing,+China&hl=en&geocode=FSXybQIdM_-W-ykHI_iTU1jCiTHtZhXelmjV9w%3BFS4QhQIdnAKu-Cnf3U-gzHbPVDFUucV20Km7zg%3B&mra=ls&sll=40.892585,-98.402135&sspn=32.473102,66.884766&ie=UTF8&ll=34.885931,-158.90625&spn=147.800344,281.25&z=1&output=embed
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*the vast distances between Beijing, Phoenix, Oregon, and New York City
*the relative size and populations of Beijing and New York City
*the fact that, even after doubling in size since my graduation, the population of Phoenix could fit in an average apartment complex in Beijing or New York City
*the distance between Phoenix and the closest city with at least a million people (about 280 miles)
*all the decisions that factored into placing Phoenix, Oregon, on Jon's itinerary at that point in time
*the fact that last May George Fox University chose me, a Nazarene, as one of the featured presenters for their Quaker Heritage Week, which was what brought me out from New York City
*the fact that this was one of a handful of trips to Southern Oregon on which I didn't set up a performance on a Sunday (Since I've never performed in Phoenix since graduating from high school the probability of me eating lunch there before or after a performance would have been minuscule, and I can only remember eating at the pizzeria a handful of times since graduation.)
*the probability that each in our party of eight would contribute to our conversation in such a way that our 8am breakfast would extend until after 11:30
*the fact that Joyce and I didn't hesitate to stay with family past the starting times of every local church we knew about because on Friday afternoon we "happened" to walk into my grandmother's residence at the exact moment they were starting their only weekly church service, which we enjoyed immensely
*the fact that my dad's cousin mentioned the Phoenix Historical Museum and could let us in for a tour
*the duration of each person's time at any given display
*the fact that my dad's cousin recommended Angelo's Pizzeria
*the fact that my dad's cousin recognized the pastor and his wife who were hosting Jon and his wife and mentioned he was hosting people from China (Though we shared two hour-plus services in Beijing Jon and I only spoke for about a minute that day. For the rest of the services I was either watching him interview Olympic champion Madeline Manning Mims from backstage or he was watching my backside as I performed.)

If any of these things hadn't been in place we either wouldn't have been in the pizza parlor at the same time or, if we were, wouldn't have recognized each other.

It's been a long time since I've studied probabilities, but the way I understand it, the probability determined by each factor is multiplied by the next to determine the final probability.

Then multiply that by the possibility of also having sat one row behind a gal who graduated from Phoenix High School three years after me in the Bird's Nest Stadium just over a year earlier during the Olympics: Out of 90,000 Seats. I'd been invited to perform for athletes in the Olympic Village that day, but the night before a dignitary flew to Beijing unexpectedly and needed the pass I was going to be given. 

The journal for my alma mater, George Fox University, just ran an article on me: A Class Act.

Mary Dyer being led to her hanging. Nineteenth c. artist unknown.

When I was in seminary I had a Church History class with Dr. Richard Lovelace, a student of Yale College, Westminster Seminary and Princeton Theological Seminary. He gave us a list of Church history figures, and we were to write a paper on one of them. I asked if I could instead write a play on Mary Dyer, a Quaker martyr. He granted me permission, and it became my first feature-length play. Act One ends with her neck in the noose as she watches two of her colleagues swing. The second act culminates in her own hanging on the Boston Common on June 1, 1660. Their crime was worshipping Jesus Christ in a manner that seemed heretical to the Puritans of Massachusetts.

The play has never been produced, but a reading of it was done at my alma mater, George Fox University, in 1999 when I was named alumnus of the year.

While looking for a bio on Dr. Lovelace (which I never found), I came across a great interview on revival with him by Christian Book Distributors: An Interview with Author Richard F. Lovelace on Revival.

Right now, we are sitting here looking at I don't know how much of the planet under the veil of Islam, the Moslems, that’s where I would expect Spiritual Awakening to spread to. If you are going to say that the Gospel is preached to every nation, I would say a powerful lot of Website, internet, or radio and TV communication would have to take place in the Moslem area. Also there is China, in which one recent figure said that 28,000 Christians are being made there everyday. If you project that for a decade or so, it will mean a very powerful spread of the gospel there.

More exciting than that are some of the things he said about revival which I pray will come to pass:

Christians may currently be partially disarmed or unarmed for Christian warfare, but if they tensed up the society would feel the brunt of this.

...

Evangelicals are very strong on Scripture, tradition, and reason. Charismatics and Pentecostals have been real strong on experience, to some degree also on Scripture. They have not been at all involved deeply in tradition, and sometimes don't make enough use of reason. But what I see coming is a balance of all of this. My hope is that we will not have glossolalic and non-glossolalic communities all absolutely isolated from one another, but that we will have communities in which the nine gifts in 1 Corinthians 12 are displayed. Evangelicals could use some of these, words of knowledge, words of wisdom. I see more of a vanilla-fudge mixture coming in the future, where you can’t tell the Charismatics from the Evangelicals.

...

If you are going to see this whole society revived the way it was in the first fifty years of the 19th century (1800-1850), you are going to have to have a massive educational revival. Because if you are going to find one toxic drip that has been dripping into us, it is our school systems.