91����Ƶ Theatre brings Shakespeare’s heartwarming tale of mystery and magic to life in an original musical, featuring hit songs from the ’80s and ’90s and dynamic choreographed dance numbers. “The Winter’s Tale: A Musical Adaptation” comes to the Lee Eshleman Studio Theater, with nightly shows at 7:30 p.m. from April 9-12.

Tickets for the show are on sale at and will be available at the door, though seating inside the theater is limited and tickets have been known to sell out quickly. Tickets range from $6 for 91����Ƶ and JMU students, $10 for children and other students, $18 for seniors (65+), and $20 for adults.

“The Winter’s Tale” follows two kingdoms torn apart by jealousy, a lost queen, and the love that may bring them back together. When Leontes, the tyrannical king of Sicilia (Elie Hoover), suspects his wife Hermione (Jubilee Soper) of unfaithfulness with Polixenes, king of Bohemia (Samuel Castaneda), he becomes so enraged that he orders her jailed and their infant daughter abandoned.

Sixteen years later, as the seasons shift from winter to spring, the story moves to Bohemia, where Leontes’ daughter, Perdita (Emilee White), is now grown and has captured the heart of Florizel (Kayden Beidler), the brash and dramatic son of Polixenes. Will their love be enough to reunite the two kingdoms?

Perhaps best known for the stage direction, “Exit, pursued by a bear,” this sweet and complex romance is written in Shakespeare’s signature iambic pentameter. But this adaptation adds a “nice little twist,” said guest director Haley Davis: a mix of 1980s and ’90s chart-toppers, personally selected by ���ѱ�’s talented student cast, woven throughout the play. It’s sure to have the whole audience singing along.

Frequent 91����Ƶ Theatre collaborator Jim Clemens returns as music director, performing iconic rock ballads and pop rock songs on piano, while student Bryan Joya-Estrada, who also portrays the Shepherd, plays various instruments.

The costumes, designed by Rebecca Bailey, blend early modern and Renaissance elements with an ’80s and ’90s punk rock aesthetic, Davis said.

Rounding out the crew are Shannon Dove as technical director, Sierra Priest as choreographer, and Sarah Peak as stage manager.

The play will be performed in the round, with audience members seated on all sides of the raised stage and in the upper balcony.

“It’s more fun when you have the audience right there at your toes,” said Davis, an administrative-professional faculty member of James Madison University’s School of Theatre and Dance. “You can look up at the heavens or down at the earth, and you have people there to share the moment with.”

It was only after the audition process that it became clear to the production team which play to perform. “In a special way, this play was chosen based on the people rather than the other way around,” she said. “I found that this approach, coupled with the students musically adapting the play, gave the team unique agency in the story they wanted to tell.”

Beidler, who plays the roles of Florizel and Antigonus, said they love how collaborative the show has felt. “It was so fun helping pick the music, and it really feels like we’ve made this show ours,” they said.

Hoover, who portrays Leontes and Autolycus, said, “It’s fun getting to play characters who are both so different from each other and from me.”

One of the play’s most striking moments is when it travels over 16 years, transporting the characters from Sicilia to Bohemia, from a harsh winter to a forgiving spring. The shift has also felt meaningful for the students, who began rehearsals in winter and are gradually emerging into spring themselves.

“I want audiences to walk away with a sense of hope,” Davis said. “Things can look bleak and cold and scary, but there’s something better around the corner if we hold on and let time do what it needs to do.”

Cast
Leontes/Autolycus — Elie Hoover
Hermione — Jubilee Soper
Mamillius/Perdita — Emilee White
Camillo — Erin Batten
Polixenes — Samuel Casteneda
Paulina — Elena Middlebrook
Florizel/Antigonus — Kayden Beidler
Shepherd/Officer — Bryan Joya-Estrada
Lord/Messenger — Kyah Young

Crew
Director — Haley Davis
Music Director — Jim Clemens
Technical Director — Shannon Dove
Costumer — Rebecca Bailey
Choreographer — Sierra Priest
Stage Manager — Sarah Peak

Trina Trotter Nussbaum ’00, MA ’17 will never forget the first time she saw the view from the Campus Center balcony. Standing on the balcony overlooking the Front Lawn and gazing east toward the Blue Ridge Mountains, the then-first-year student recalled telling a friend: “I don’t know what I’m going to study, but I know this is where I need to be. This is my place.”

“All it took was one look at those mountains, and they seemed to tell me, ‘You belong here,’” Trotter Nussbaum said.��

That was nearly 30 years ago. Today, Trotter Nussbaum is the new director of the Center for Interfaith Engagement, a position she’s held since Jan. 1. She still feels that same sense of belonging at 91����Ƶ and works to ensure others on campus feel it too. Through her role at CIE, she celebrates and supports students, faculty and staff from a wide range of faith traditions and backgrounds.��

It was a long road that led her to 91����Ƶ. After graduating from high school in North Lima, Ohio, Trotter Nussbaum, who was raised Mennonite, moved to Pittsburgh and completed travel agency school. She gradually learned that it wasn’t the career for her. Returning home to Ohio, she ran into a childhood friend about to graduate from 91����Ƶ who told her, “You should give 91����Ƶ a try.” It was just the push she needed.��

Trotter Nussbaum arrived on campus in the fall of 1995 as a 22-year-old first-year English major. She was older than the others in her Northlawn dorm, but she saw that as a blessing. “It helped me settle down and figure out what I wanted to do.”

That turned out to be theater. Trotter Nussbaum credits ���ѱ�’s theater program with recognizing her strengths as a performer and teaching her invaluable listening and improv skills. During the second semester of her junior year, she added a psychology major. Though it delayed her graduation by another year, she said it ended up being one of the best decisions she ever made. “I might not be acting or counseling right now, but I draw on those skills every day,” Trotter Nussbaum said. She graduated in 2000 with bachelor’s degrees in theater and psychology, along with a minor in justice, peace and conflict studies. She said professors in her justice and theology classes challenged her faith with love and grace, ultimately strengthening it and shaping her into the faith-based peacebuilder she is today.

After a decade spent working at nonprofits and government agencies, Trotter Nussbaum returned to 91����Ƶ in 2013 as associate director of CIE. Fueled by formative experiences during a 1998 intercultural trip to Ireland and Northern Ireland, she began pursuing a master’s degree in conflict transformation at the Center for Justice and Peacebuilding. It took her another five years to complete the two-year program while working at CIE and raising two children. In 2017, she earned her MA.

Ever the lifelong learner, Trotter Nussbaum continues to seek out further education. She’s working toward earning MDiv equivalency so that she can enroll in the new Doctor of Ministry program at Eastern Mennonite Seminary.��

Over the years, she’s received numerous scholarships as a student. She said those scholarships, as well as ���ѱ�’s tuition benefits for employees, made it possible for her to continue her studies. “I love how 91����Ƶ encourages its employees to take the classes they want to take,” she said. “The ability to take classes, even one at a time, for almost free is such a blessing.”

Trotter Nussbaum and her husband, Brian Nussbaum ’00, live in Harrisonburg with their two children. Her brother, Travis Trotter ’99, serves as university registrar for 91����Ƶ.

Your generous support helps students like Trotter Nussbaum pursue a quality college education without financial barriers. Join us for the 9th annual Lov91����Ƶ Giving Day and contribute to the scholarships that empower future 91����Ƶ students. Together, we can help write ���ѱ�’s next chapter.

Read the previous profiles in our A Royal Tale series:

The musical, adapted from Riordan’s 2005 bestseller, debuted on Broadway in 2019 and follows the journey of Percy Jackson, an underachieving teen who discovers he’s a demigod. Played by 91����Ƶ senior Adam Hoover, Percy is accused of stealing Zeus’ lightning bolt, leading him on a quest with his friends Grover, portrayed by Mac Rhodes-Lehman, and Annabeth, played by Ella Walters, to clear his name and prevent a war between the Greek gods. Along the way, Percy must face mythological monsters and unravel the mysteries of his heritage.

Directed by 91����Ƶ Theatre Program Director Justin Poole, with music direction by Jim Clemens and costume design by Rachel Herrick, the production delivers an action-packed adventure filled with humor, heart, and high-energy performances. Rounding out the artistic staff are Robert Weaver (lighting designer), Shannon Dove (set designer/technical director) and Ellie de Waal (choreographer).

The electrifying score, performed by Clemens on keyboard alongside a live rock band, will energize the intimate theater space, while larger-than-life puppetry and choreographed sword fights enhance the mythical spectacle.

Senior Cassidy Williams portrays Luke and Ares, delivering dynamic performances that combine vocal range and physical prowess. “Singing while sword fighting is no easy feat,” said Williams. “It’s been a rewarding challenge to portray such complex characters.”

Senior Alexis Lewis serves as assistant director and production assistant. “This show offers a fresh, punk rock twist on classic Greek myths,” Lewis said. “It’s packed with fun, upbeat moments that will appeal to longtime fans and newcomers alike.”

The cast, composed of 91����Ƶ students and community members, will interact with the audience throughout the production, using the entire Studio Theater space for an immersive experience. “It’s a highly dynamic production,” said Poole. “There are no barriers between the cast and the audience—they’ll be performing from the stage, the mezzanine, and even within the crowd.”

Tickets are $20 for adults, $18 for seniors, $10 for children 18 and under, and $6 for university students. For tickets, visit:

Cast
Percy Jackson — Adam Hoover
Annabeth Chase — Ella Walters
Annabeth Understudy/Silena Beauregard — Emilee White
Grover/Mr.D — Mac Rhodes-Lehman
Luke/Ares — Cassidy Williams
Sally Jackson/The Oracle — Emma Saville
Clarisse/Mrs.Dodds/Medusa/Charon — Elie Hoover
Chiron/Kronos — Ezra Smith
Gabe Ugliani/Hades/Poseidon — Jacob Nissley
Katie Gardner/Various ensemble roles — Saycia Szakonyi
Various ensemble roles — Katie Beth Warner

Crew
Director — Justin Poole
Music Director — Jim Clemens
Assistant Director/Promotions Assistant/Production Assistant — Alexis Lewis
Vocal Coach — Afton Rhodes-Lehman
Technical Director and Set Designer — Shannon Dove
Costume Designer — Rachel Herrick
Light Designer — Robert Weaver
Choreographer — Ellie de Waal
Stage Manager — Sarah Peak
Assistant Stage Manager — Erin Batten
Assistant Stage Manager — River Lynch

Yet Muhammad Afdillah—a visiting scholar with 91����Ƶ’s —chose this moment, just a week before he returned to his home in Indonesia, to begin to heal himself. He recounted a story involving physical and psychological injury.

Then he watched as Inside Out, ���ѱ�’s resident troupe, improvised a tense narrative of violence, friendship, loss, physical and emotional scarring, and finally, hope of reconciliation. Afdillah wasn’t the only watcher who had wet eyes by the end.

Empathy from the audience

It may have helped that other storytellers had shared before—some with halting speech and others interspersing laughter with words—of surviving cancer, of stitching a wedding dress for a beloved stepdaughter, of making friends and enduring goodbyes.

It may have helped that he knew some of the actors— all 91����Ƶ students, faculty or graduates—and even some of the audience, most of whom were participating in the or the training.

“That might have helped,” Afdillah said later. “But it was for me. It was the right time. I was trembling, but my heart was telling me this.”

Though Inside Out has “played back” stories from a variety of audiences, including sexual abuse survivors and college students recently returned from cross-cultural experiences, the May 21 event was the first time the troupe hosted a storytelling session for this particular group.

Playback theater helps its participants understand and reflect upon their experiences, says 91����Ƶ professor , who co-founded Inside Out in 2011. “That simple act of sharing stories and seeing them played back, seeing it out there, allows processing. It is harder to work for healing when it’s all in your head. In addition, there’s a tremendous connection between people in the audience who see that story and have a similar experience to share.”

A “conductor” facilitates the process

Making those connections is the role of an actor called the conductor, who facilitates the storytelling of a volunteer audience member, gathers more information through questions, and then helps to “shape” the story before turning it over to the actors with the invitation, “Let’s watch.”

At this event, Bridget Mullins was the conductor, and the actors included fellow CJP students Fabrice Guerrier and Matt Carlson; 91����Ƶ alumni Liz Gannaway, Brandon Waggy, and Tonya Osinkosky; and troupe co-founder . Vogel, who also participated, said most of the actors had participated in STAR training or were familiar with concepts related to trauma awareness, resilience, and peacebuilding.

“This is applied theater,” Vogel said, “not theater for entertainment. It’s theater for social justice and understanding. A lot of people don’t understand playback theater until they attend a storytelling session, and when they see it, they realize the big possibilities.”

Afdillah had no idea of its life-changing potential when he was invited by a fellow SPI participant to attend the performance. “I don’t really like theater,” he said with a laugh later.

A faculty member at in Indonesia, Afdillah researches and lectures on socio-religious conflict and politics. He collects data, supervises graduate students, collaborates with other peacebuilders and policy-makers, and admits that, like many others in his field, he rarely takes the time for himself.

For the last six months on campus, during spring semester classes and courses at the Summer Peacebuilding Institute, Afdillah began to “meditate and think about my life,” he said. “In my work, I tell people to deal with their trauma, to let it go. But I have my own trauma, my own problems. At the end, watching the story was almost the same as what I experienced, the tragedy. I feel the pain. I don’t know how this story ends, but this is starting to be ready for an ending.”

Seven-day course offered through SPI

The potential for healing dialogue through playback theater will be highlighted in a seven-day SPI course, “,” from June 5-13. The course will be taught by two pioneers of playback theater, Jo Salas and Ben Rivers.

This is not the first time applied theater for this purpose has been taught at SPI: Rivers attended in 2011 to take courses and facilitate informal workshops and in 2012, Armand Volkas, a playback theater and dramatherapy practitioner from California, led a course.

“Many people, including Ben Rivers, have used playback theater in communities that have experienced violence and trauma,” said , Center for Justice and Peacebuilding program director. “SPI provides a space for people to learn these techniques for working with communities and a place for practitioners to reflect on what works and what does not work when using applied theater tools in conflict situations.”

Farshid Hakimyar, a CJP graduate, is enrolled in the upcoming course. He plans to explore the potential of playback theater for his work in his native Afghanistan. Telling a story to the Inside Out troupe was his first personal experience with the technique.

“I told a story of hearing a traumatic story about domestic violence, and in hearing it, I experienced secondary trauma,” Hakimyar said. “I could not breathe, I could not think, I went from sharing with my friends about music and light and the good of humanity, to hearing this story of this father losing his child in this horrible way.”

On stage that night, three actors portrayed the trajectory of Hakimyar’s emotions as he struggled to understand “the lightness and darkness inside each of us.”

“To feel such relief”

“It was a really powerful experience to watch this and to feel such relief,” Hakimyar said. “Playback theater and generally arts play a key role in any efforts. I think it can engage more people in how they can express their feelings in peaceful and non-violent ways about corruption, lack of transparency, and their government, and how they dream for the future.”

Docherty says SPI is committed to the continued exploration of applied theater tools like playback theater to situations of conflict, violence and trauma.

“We see this as a growing focus of our program,” she said, adding that at least one course in theater and one in media is planned at SPI in 2015.

But this particular ache and pain grew so intense she lay awake crying at night. She hardly ate. Berg said nothing, though. She’d grown up in a military family, and it was in her DNA to tough things out. Besides, basketball was her life. She was just beginning to think about her college career. Taking time off for a sore back? Not an option.

Yes, she was stubborn back then, and she’s still stubborn now, she admits with an abashed smile. And no, she definitely wouldn’t recommend this course of non-treatment for others struggling with injury. That wasn’t the right way to handle things, but then again, it led to good things.

Her parents began to worry about the way she’d started to drag her right leg awkwardly behind her as a result of the worsening injury. They also noticed that she’d lost a lot of weight and, concerned about an eating disorder, they sat their daughter down for an intervention. Berg broke down and told them everything – how a little twinge, over the course of weeks and months, had devolved into such monstrous pain that she couldn’t sleep or eat.

End of basketball dreams

Diagnosis: two herniated discs. Berg underwent lumbar fusion surgery before her junior year of high school. She spent the summer working her way from a wheelchair to a walker to figuring out how to walk again on her own. A doctor-ordered ban on contact sports brought her basketball career to a sudden and crushing end.

Something of a spiritual crisis ensued. How could something that meant so much just be snatched from her like that? What sort of God lets that happen?

Berg gradually shifted her extracurricular focus to theater.

Before graduation, Berg and her classmates took a survey to help guide their college decisions – the sort of thing that tries to match someone’s interests and preferences with different schools’ characteristics. When the results came back, a strange word crossed Berg’s lips for the first time: Mennonite. She’d never heard of such a thing, nor had she heard of 91����Ƶ (91����Ƶ). She didn’t think much of it, skeptical about this survey outcome.

But when she stumbled across an 91����Ƶ booth at a college fair soon thereafter, she lined up a campus visit. When she came for an overnight stay, she caught a student-run Gonzo Theatre show, scoped out the , and decided that the college placement survey had been right after all. 91����Ƶ was the place for her.

Arriving on campus in the fall of 2011, Berg was ready for new, exciting challenges. But the first ones she encountered were not what she expected.

Military vs. pacifist orientations

Yorktown is very different place from 91����Ƶ and the surrounding community. Berg lived a few minutes down the road from Langley Field. Her dad was in the Air Force, her boyfriend – who became her fiance in March 2014 – was (and is) in the Air Force, her cousins were in the military, and pretty much everyone around her growing up was connected in some way to the armed forces. Supporting the troops, individually and collectively, and the jobs they are asked to do was a given among practically everyone Berg had ever known.

She didn’t know that the American flag doesn’t fly on ���ѱ�’s campus, and she had no idea that the patriotic pins she wore on her backpack would invite criticism from her classmates. She would never have guessed that one of her professors would make disparaging remarks about the military.

All of this amounted to a huge shock. Berg had barely heard of Mennonites when she enrolled, and was completely ignorant of the centuries-long Mennonite tradition of pacifism. Early on, she didn’t always respond gently when her views were challenged. She had angry exchanges with some other students. She had angry exchanges with God. College was supposed to be the best four years of her life, right?

91����Ƶ had just magically bubbled up out of nowhere and had seemed so perfect. And yet, here she’d ended up, stretching herself to the financial limit to be at a school where she felt like an outcast and where people seemed unwilling to give her perspective a fair chance.

“That’s what I feel like 91����Ƶ really struggles with,” Berg says. “People come in so whole-heartedly believing things, because of how they were raised, that when they meet somebody who believes differently, they’re like, ‘You’re wrong.’”

Stubbornly staying at 91����Ƶ, eventually glad she did

She realized she was part of the problem – her first reaction to criticism of the military was figuring that the criticizers were wrong. She wanted to leave, but her stubborn streak kicked back in.

She thought about her great-grandmother, who’d died during Berg’s difficult first year at 91����Ƶ, and who had always prayed that Berg would go to a Christian college. Berg stuck with it for her. She took a spiritual formation class, which included a one-on-one spiritual advisor, who proved a good listener as Berg struggled to find her place on campus.

Things gradually turned around. In the fall of 2012, Berg joined other students who set up a display of 200 pairs of empty boots, worn by Virginian soldiers killed in the past decade’s wars, . Berg began feeling empowered to take risks and to be more outspoken about her beliefs. She began developing a better ability to listen to others. She decided that she’d been led to 91����Ƶ to make her different voice heard. She stuck with her interest in theater, appearing in three full-length productions on campus.

Looking back, all of it falls into place as part of God’s plan for her life, Berg says.

Berg says her thoughts about the military haven’t changed much since she came to 91����Ƶ, but she has developed respect for different opinions. She hopes that the people with those different opinions can say the same from interacting with her.

‘What higher ed is all about’

“Hattie serves as an excellent example of what higher education is really all about,” says ���ѱ�’s vice-president for enrollment, , who became a mentor of Berg’s.

“Hattie came to 91����Ƶ with a singular perspective and a strong inherited value base, and is now leaving with a deep and rich understanding of a multiplicity of viewpoints. She worked through the challenge of having her value base questioned and came out more knowledgeable, and more equipped to work, serve and lead in a 21st-century society. I could not be more proud of her today.”

Berg will graduate in April 2014 with degrees in theater and and, at least as important, a new grasp on how to communicate better, how to live beside people who have very different ideas about the world, and how to not let those differences define or diminish one’s relationships.

“I love 91����Ƶ,” Berg says. “I’ve struggled a lot being here and there were times when I thought I hated 91����Ƶ. But I wouldn’t want to be anywhere else.”

“I’ve written a lot of comedy, satire and even horror, but I’ve never written a cancer play,” explained Bodner, an aspiring playwright.

“I decided I was going to start interviewing people who had their lives affected by cancer — patient, doctor, nurse, family member — and try to create a fictional story based off the interviews I had with them,” he continued.

More than 150 pages later, Bodner settled on an idea. He would write a play centered on the life of a 50-year-old man stricken with Grade Three anaplastic astrocytoma, a type of brain cancer.

After more consideration, Bodner changed course again.

“Originally, [the play] was going to be about a 50-year-old man, then I decided that was horrible. I had never been a 50-year-old man,” said Bodner. “So, I wrote from the perspective of a high schooler instead.

“The original script that I had is very different from the one [I ended up with].”

Hence the final installment of his idea, “The Crowleys of Tobias,” a student-oriented Laboratory Production, which will run Dec. 5-7 in ���ѱ�’s Lee Eshleman Studio Theater.

The play follows 17-year-old Tobias in his final moments battling brain cancer, which fully develops in his temporal lobe. Throughout the drama, the audience witnesses the development of Tobias’ relationships with his mother, Lydia, his friends, Blake and Zoe, and the hallucinogenic manifestation known as Crowley, which helps Tobias cope with dying.

“The theme is still very much the same, but a lot of the plot structure itself has changed because it’s not a 50-year-old man,” said Bodner. “The dynamic changes from ‘What I could have done’ to ‘What I’ll never be able to do.’ ”

To help Bodner bring his lines to life, co-director Amanda Chandler sought to display the realism she found throughout the script.

“We see Tobias as a normal 17-year-old,” explained the senior theater and major. “I wanted to highlight [his] relationships and juxtapose them with the outrageous behavior of Crowley and the dream world he orchestrates.”

Bodner explains Crowley’s relationship with Tobias.

“It’s the idea of having the wickedest man in the world running around in your head causing all sorts of ruckus,” Bodner elaborated. “Crowley, to me, represents a cruel reality of love within death, a weird, twisted, morbid form of love. But it in that grotesqueness you find something beautiful.”

Associate professor of ���ѱ�’s theater department Heidi Winters Vogel oversaw the creative process behind the presentation and commends Bodner for his script.

“Michael is a very good writer,” said Vogel. “He did a lot of interviewing with hospice workers and Astrocytoma patients — most of them who are no longer alive — because it does have a very high mortality rate. He’s been really honest to their experience.”

“The journey I took comes out in the play,” concludes Bodner.

The play stages at 7:30 p.m. Dec. 5 and 6; and 3 p.m. and 9 p.m. Dec. 7.

Tickets are $5 for general admission and $2 for 91����Ƶ students. Contact the 91����Ƶ theater department at 540-432-4360 for more information and age appropriateness.

Courtesy Daily News Record, Dec. 5, 2013

The visionary at the top of the production team for Good’s new play, , is acclaimed executive producer .

She was pivotal in the production of , a musical centering on a rural Baptist Church in North Carolina in the WWII era (performed more than 500 times in New York in the 1990s). She was also producer of , a drama about an imagined meeting between Sigmund Freud and C. S. Lewis, which had a two-year run off-Broadway into 2012; it then moved to venues in Chicago, Los Angeles, and Sydney, Australia. Copeland and her employees have racked up countless other successful theater productions over the last 30 years.

“I love working on new plays,” Copeland told the 91����Ƶ news service. “I don’t want to do revivals – they don’t interest me. I want to see fresh creations, like The Preacher and the Shrink, be brought to their full potential.”

Upon Copeland’s recommendation, the director will be long-time theater artist , with whom she collaborated on the comedy Flamingo Court, which ran for two summer seasons off Broadway. Yuhasz, who brings directing, producing and acting experience (plus an MFA in directing, set and costume design), will be adding this directing stint to his regular workload as executive director of the non-profit in Norwalk, Conn.

The Goods, Copeland, Yuhasz, and a handful of other creative collaborators heard Merle’s script performed by talented professional actors in a “table reading” in April in NYC, which stoked everyone’s sense of enthusiasm for the play’s potential, said Yuhasz.

Post-reading, Good felt inspired to re-draft parts of his play, on which he had been working intermittently since 2006. Among other revisions, he cut about 12 pages from it to yield a faster-paced production.

“The play has a great story to tell,” said Yuhasz. “There are universal themes in it. It’s a story about relationships and how people evolve into a new place with them. I believe everyone [in the audience] will walk away with something different from it.”

Yuhasz said a director has to “get into the head of the playwright,” which he feels he is able to do with Good. In his playwriting, “Merle has a way of bringing out people’s hearts and souls, and the real world that they live in,” said Yuhasz.

On Good’s part, he is looking forward to watching Yuhasz do the casting in September. “He’ll assemble a superb, highly professional cast,” Good said.

Good stresses that The Preacher and the Shrink is not a “Mennonite play” or a “church play” or a “Christian play,” as they are often defined. “It is a play written for the general theater-going public,” he said. “It is not an allegory or a parable. It is first and foremost a straightforward story, with all of its complexities. It looks at the estrangement between a father, who happens to be a mainline Protestant pastor, and his daughter.”

When Good was living in NYC in the early 1970s, pursuing an MDiv at , he began to ponder the way psychiatrists were taking the place of pastoral religious leaders as “listeners” for people feeling troubled. This insight is explored in his new play, he noted.

After three years of graduate study in New York, Good (a ’69 grad of 91����Ƶ) and his wife Phyllis (class of ’70) returned to their home turf in Lancaster, Pa., where they ran a summer theater for a decade, among other business pursuits. Good, who was the lead in the first official play produced at 91����Ƶ, Murder in the Cathedral, oversaw 400 productions of 10 plays he wrote during this period, always on themes pertaining the Mennonites and Amish.

He also assisted in writing the script for Hazel’s People, a feature-length film about modern-living Mennonites made in the 1970s. It was based on his only published novel Happy as the Grass Was Green (1971).

In subsequent decades Good immersed himself in succeeding at the business of book publishing. This he has accomplished, in partnership with Phyllis. The flagship of their cluster of family businesses, , has about 200 books on the market currently. In recent years daughter Kate Good ’99 came aboard as assistant publisher. She’s an English major (like both parents) who earned an MFA in creative writing at George Mason University.

The Preacher and the Shrink will be performed Nov. 2 through Jan. 4 in an intimately warm venue chosen by Copeland. It’s , a complex of five small off-Broadway theaters at 410 West 42^nd Street near Times Square in Manhattan.

Good said members of his church, in Lancaster, have already chartered a 56-seat bus to take hometown folks to see the play, and the bus seats are almost all taken.

“I wanted to give persons and groups in Phyllis’s and my circle of acquaintances first chance at tickets,” said Good. “So I’m trying to get the word out in August before the play is marketed to the wider public, beginning Sept. 1.”

Those who are hoping to bring a group may want to plan early and reserve early. “There will be only ten Saturday matinee dates during the run,” said Copeland. “So if you have a specific weekend in mind to bring your group, it’s best to reserve early. The Thanksgiving, Christmas and New Year seasons will most likely sell out first.”

The seven weekly performances of The Preacher and the Shrink will be Tuesdays at 7 p.m., Wednesdays through Saturdays at 8 p.m., Saturdays at 2 p.m., and Sundays at 3 p.m.

Tickets are available through Telecharge.com, 800-447-7400 (for group sales, call 800-432-7780). Groups also can be booked through Your Broadway Genius Groups at 877-943-2929.

His own story moves from growing up in a rural church in southern Michigan to 91����Ƶ (91����Ƶ), Harrisonburg, Va., to Guatemala to Notre Dame (Ind.) University, where he completed a doctoral program in the sociology of religion. His dissertation has been published by Oxford University Press as the book Homies and Hermanos: God and Gangs in Central America.

Born in Pennsylvania, Bob moved to Michigan, where his parents helped Bob’s grandfather, who had started the North Wayne Mennonite Church as a church plant of the Conservative Mennonite Conference. Later Bob’s father served as pastor of the church.

In 1993, Bob began studies at 91����Ƶ, where he majored in and and minored in . During his four years there, he spent a semester in Guatemala at the CASAS program, in which students learn Spanish and live with a local family.

After graduating from 91����Ƶ in 1997, Bob returned to Guatemala and worked with for four years. There he met Gaby Ochoa, now his wife.

He became interested in studying at seminary and spent one semester at Associated (now Anabaptist) Mennonite Biblical Seminary (AMBS) in Elkhart, Ind., in 2001, before returning to Guatemala, where he and Gaby married.

Pentecostalism: In 2003, he decided to study sociology of religion and enrolled in the graduate program at Notre Dame. He had read such authors as Peter Berger, Robert Wuthnow and Christian Smith and wanted to understand better the interplay of religion and society. He also studied liberation theology and Pentecostalism.

“Sociology emphasizes method and quantitative analysis,” he says. He thought that provided a better understanding of what’s going on in religion. He also hoped to get a theological degree at AMBS and took several more courses there. But once his children, Nicolás, who’s now 6, and Gabo, 4, were born, he gave up that goal.

Eventually, he needed to choose a dissertation topic. He was interested in studying foot-washing practices of Mennonites and published an article in Mennonite Quarterly Review. But his advisor talked him into focusing on another topic that interested him: gangs in Central America.

During his service with MCC, he had met an MCC worker from Colombia, Ricardo Borres, who worked with the Honduran church on reconciliation between warring gangs. But Bob had not dealt with them firsthand.

He returned to Guatemala and collected data in 2007 and 2008. As his book describes, he interviewed 63 former gang members who had chosen to leave that life. Many joined a church, usually an evangelical or Pentecostal church in their city or town.

But Bob did more than collect data. He told many of these (mostly) men’s and women’s stories. He begins each chapter of the book with a story of a former gang member. “I didn’t want to just use quotes to make a point,” he says. “I wanted to dignify the person telling his story and in the process change the one hearing the story.”

Global capitalism: Writing the book changed him as well, he says. And it helped him resist change. Academia tends to pull a person toward success and a safe environment, he says. But the book pulled him back “into caring about the plight of those being ground under by global capitalism.”

He has become more aware of the vast chasm between the opportunities he and his students have and what those young people he interviewed in Central America have who are tempted to join gangs. “I realize how privileged I am and how deeply divided the world is” between those who have so much and those who have so little.

What enables these gang members to leave their gangs, at the risk of their lives, and join a church? The churches are there, first of all, in the communities where these people live. The churches tend to stress transformation and see this as a social process, not just a psychological change. The churches also emphasize community, discipleship and nonviolence.

While most of these churches are evangelical or what we would call Pentecostal, the Honduran Mennonite Church has been involved in working with ex-gang members for many years. Bob says their ministry is among the most holistic and effective of all he witnessed.

Courtesy The Mennonite, Oct. 1, 2012

Theater
As a  student, you’ll act, direct and design productions, exploring your gifts and getting hands-on experience while unpacking the faith and social justice aspects of your work. Cast and crew regularly gather with professors for “faith roundtables” to discuss implications of plays, community response and more.

Art
If you’re a , you’ll work with professor Cyndi Gusler, creator of , a runway show of innovative attire created entirely from cast-off materials. Highlighting sustainable styling and the choices we all make in life, the show .

Music
���ٳܻ��Գ������Ǵڳٱ����, like linking music with digital media for a career in sound design and movie scoring. Or you can weave music with peacebuilding to do conflict transformation through musical productions, or with nursing to do music therapy. 2012 graduate Charise Garber, now in med school,, music and biology, and explored how the mind is influenced by music.

Digital media and photography
 majors learn digital imaging, photography, videography, motion graphics, design, audio and more in a thriving program that is one of the most popular in our university. You can . Student and graduate work has appeared in such outlets as Time Magazine, The New York Times, and The Hill (serving the U.S. Congress).

Language and literature
Mastery of �����Ի� appreciation of literature contribute to success in almost every walk of life. Perhaps you’ll write original poetry and fiction for Phoenix, ���ѱ�’s literary and visual arts journal, engage with notable authors visiting campus for the , do a writing internship at a non-profit, or hone your language skills to bring change in cross-cultural settings all over the world.

Find meaningful work in your field

98% of 91����Ƶ graduates are working, engaged in service or in further study within 12 months of graduation.��Nearly 90% are employed within their field of study.��Check out what two 91����Ƶ arts alumni are doing now:

• Katie Goins Frewens, an , earned a doctorate of musical arts and now teaches middle school music to urban teens. While a student, she was the piano rehearsal accompanist for the �����Ի� sang with .

• Matt Pearson combined a ���ɾ��ٳ��������Ի��������Դǰ��� to prepare for his goal of becoming an ordained Methodist minister. While a student, Matt acted and directed in the majority of MainStage productions, founded an improv troupe still going strong today, and interned at Second City Improv in Chicago. He went on to earn a divinity degree, and in 2012 became a youth pastor in California.

Contact us

Start the conversation by , scheduling a , talking with a professor or coach, or .��See what life is really like at our Christian university like no other!

“The Feminine Divine: Embrace and Release” is a participatory dance workshop facilitated by Akiko Ishihara and framed by graphic posters designed by Chelsea Kight. It will be held Wednesday, April 11, 7-9 p.m., in the .

Ishihara is a graduate student in and Kight is an undergraduate in the .

A staged reading centering on the body and souls of people in a country torn by a dictator will be held at 91����Ƶ’s on Friday, April 13, and Saturday, April 14, at 7 p.m.

“Death and The Maiden” by Ariel Dorfman will be directed by the theater department’s artist-in-residence and CJP graduate, Roger Foster.

“The three-person cast of , Nathaniel Daniel and , will put a very human face on issues of national trauma, reconciliation and transitional justice,” said Foster.

, chair of , added, “This play uses language and situations that are shocking and painful. This is appropriate for the story but may not be suitable for all audiences.”

, art galleries director and professor of the and said, “Traditional art programs are becoming more focused on working in community, and the world increasingly sees the arts as unique tools for healing and community building.”

“The Feminine Divine” is a new chapter in ���ѱ�’s peacebuilding artist-in-residence experiment, which consists of a year-long progression of gallery exhibits across disciplines and among artists, according to Moore.

“The arts offer peacebuilders unique tools for transforming intractable interpersonal, intercommunal, national and global conflicts – tools that are not currently prevalent or available within the peacebuilding field,” said , PhD, research professor and founding director of .

“The task for peacebuilding practitioners is to find strategic ways of incorporating the arts into the work of peacebuilding and to create a space where people in conflict can express themselves, heal themselves and reconcile themselves through the arts.”

For more information on the dance workshop or the 91����Ƶ art galleries contact Paulette Moore at paulette.moore@emu.edu or 703-597-7766.

For more information on the staged reading, contact the theater department at 540-432-4360 or email theater@emu.edu.

“There are more options out there for today’s students,” says Dula. “Rather than joining a traditional church structure, they sometimes choose to search for something even more Anabaptist.”

The emerging church movement and New Monasticism have created alternatives to traditional church that draw from and can inform an Anabaptist perspective, says Dula, a 1992 graduate.

“New Monasticism focuses on prayer, communal life and reaching out to the poor… Ideas that are rooted in the Christian tradition, but in a way Anabaptists can recognize as their own. It is an interesting time to teach and think about Anabaptism.”

Embracing the change

Instead of resisting alternatives to traditional worship, Dula and , a 1981 91����Ƶ graduate and Bible and religion instructor, see an opportunity to embrace alternatives and use them to engage and inform students.

“Our goal is to equip students to engage in shaping the future of the church,” said Schrock-Hurst, who also serves as co-pastor at Immanuel Mennonite Church in Harrisonburg, Va. “All these ideas are available to this generation and we can create space for them to explore and figure out what works in their faith journeys.”

���ѱ�’s Bible and religion department tries to continually learn from students, says Dula. “Many of them are way out ahead of us as teachers.” We want to be a “meeting place,” he notes, where Mennonite and students from diverse backgrounds can share ideas on faith and God’s calling in their lives.

“Some of our best students enter 91����Ƶ without a background in Anabaptism or the Mennonite church,” said Dula. “They find here, however, a space to own, appropriate and transform what they learn in our classrooms in ways that manage to be thoroughly Anabaptist.”

, professor of Bible and religion added, “I find that sometimes the students who are not from Mennonite backgrounds add a kind of new-discovery freshness when they embrace the peace position. Other times, we get challenges to pacifist assumptions born out of different ways of thinking about the Bible and Christianity.”

More than a classroom

���ѱ�’s provides an alternative classroom for many Bible and religion students with profound results. The experience, led by , professor of culture and mission and his wife, , showcases the history of the Bible while exploring current conflicts. Students are immersed in language and cultural studies while living in Palestine and Jerusalem.

After spending a semester in the Middle East, senior Jamie Hiner, from Culpeper, Va., observed, “I can connect to the stories [of the Bible] on a completely different level. I understand who Jesus was on a human level, and I have a connection to the land, people and cultures.”

In addition to the Middle East cross-cultural program, 91����Ƶ is the only higher-education institution offering a major in . , associate professor of , says that while Catholics and Protestants have a long academic tradition in philosophy, Anabaptists are important contributors “because our own history of having been marginalized, our understanding of concrete embodied community, and our commitment to peace and reconciliation.”

Senior Ben Bailey, from Simsbury, Conn., found his knowledge of the Bible to be “limited compared to my peers at 91����Ƶ.” A double-major in and , Bailey says his studies have provided him with a “comprehensive base knowledge to build upon.

“I continually feel the need to understand and question the Bible and theology on a deeper level.”

Hiner, a major with a minor in , added, “I’ve learned so much from personal relationships with my professors. I love having real conversations with them outside the classroom.”

Looking ahead

Bible and religion department faculty envision their department’s influence expanding across campus and in the community through dialogue with campus ministries and local churches. Interest in the department’s is growing as opportunities to explore internships outside of “traditional” pastoring arise. The very definition of “pastor” and “church” is changing; students are interested in how they intersect with these concepts.

“Students have an advantage with on campus, in addition to and numerous Mennonite churches nearby to integrate and connect with pastors, leaders and teachers,” Schrock-Hurst says.

Dula agrees, adding, “The goal is to make the discussion and debates that occur in our classrooms become the heart and soul of campus. This will encourage growth not only in the department and across campus, but in the broader church.”

These questions and more will be explored as 91����Ƶ’s (91����Ƶ) theater department presents, “Art,” by Yasmina Reza, Feb. 17, 18, 24 and 25 at 7:30 p.m. Directed by Julia King, Art will be performed in the Margaret Martin Gehman Art Gallery in University Commons.

The comedy raises questions about art and friendship, revolving around three friends, Serge, Marc and Yvan. The purchase of a white painting tests the friendship of Sarge and Marc and puts Yvan squarely in the middle. Hilarity ensues as the trio navigates questions about relationships, how we create friendships and what we have to offer.

“In staging the production in the art gallery everyone gets a ring-side seat,” said King. “The audience becomes the art work on the walls, examining these three friends as they self-destruct and eventually come to terms with what it means to be friends.”

Art is the winner of the 1998 Tony Award for Best Play and 1996 Olivier Award for Best Comedy.

Tickets and more information

Tickets are $5 for general admission or $2 for 91����Ƶ Students. They are available through the theater department, 540-432-4674 or email theater@emu.edu. Tickets can be purchased with cash or check only.

Performances will run approximately ninety minutes.

Information regarding age-appropriateness for 91����Ƶ events is available through the 91����Ƶ theater office at 540-432-4360 or theater@emu.edu

Cast

Michael Bodner, junior from Millersville, Pa./Lancaster Mennonite High School

Gabriel Brunk, a senior from Harrisonburg, Va./Eastern Mennonite High School

Devin Hall, a junior from Halifax, Va./Halifax High School

Performances are Friday, Dec. 2, and Saturday, Dec. 3, at 7:30 p.m., Wednesday, Dec. 7, at 7 p.m., Friday, Dec. 9, at 7:30 p.m., and Saturday, Dec. 10, at 7:30 p.m. and 10 p.m.

Alisha Huber, who directs the Archibald MacLeish play, said J.B. reflects the biblical book of Job. “Job rejects easy answers; it trashes the gospel of wealth; it destroys our rational universe,” said Huber. “As we’ve worked on J.B., all of us have examined our own experiences with trauma and found the deep truth in the play…It avoids cliches about death and suffering, choosing an intense and human honesty instead.”

Published in 1958, J.B. tells the story of a twentieth-century American banker who God allows to be stripped of his family and wealth but who refuses to turn his back on God. MacLeish weaves humor and tragedy together, setting the entire action inside of a circus and taking all the world’s stage literally, according to Huber.

“The emotions in J.B. are profoundly mixed, but MacLeish knows-as Shakespeare knew- that the way to make a tragedy work is to make it fun and funny in places, there is a real joy in this play and real suffering,” said Huber.

Admission

General admission tickets are $5, or $2 for 91����Ƶ students, and are available through the . Performances run 90 minutes with a 10-minute intermission.

Call 540-432-4674 or email theater@emu.edu.