Joyce in Frankfurt

During EuroTour18 Joyce was invited to speak in Frankfurt. She's translated to German by our friend Thorsten M.

Here's a film in which one of Rich's colleagues was translated to German: www.RichDrama.com/YourLanguage.

The photo is of a trip to the Rhine Valley we took after Joyce's message.

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I play a lead in Providence, which I like to call a feature-length music video.

How EuroTour2018 Began

Joyce and I presented plays and teachings in eight nations throughout Europe in August and September. Later, Harald Sørlie, who produced Rich's performance of I Dreamed I Was Free in Oslo, visited New York City. We met with him and Danielle Campbell, who introduced us to Harald, at the restaurant where it all started.

We talk about that first conversation that blossomed into an eight-nation tour... and about the sounds animals make in Norwegian.

Press the arrow below, or if you're getting this in an email, visit www.Blog.RichDrama.com.

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I Dreamed I Was Free, which Rich performed in Oslo, is available anywhere in the world. It tells the story of Quaker abolitionist John Woolman, who spoke against slavery a century before our Civil War in America.

Have a blessed Christmas Season!

In a time when darkness, strife, and division seem to reign--very much like the time Jesus was born--we pray Joy to the World!

Joy to the World; The Lord is come;
Let earth receive her King:
Let every heart prepare Him room,
And Heaven and nature sing.

Joy to the Earth, The Saviour reigns;
Let men their songs employ;
While fields and floods, Rocks, hills and plains
Repeat the sounding Joy.

No more let sins and sorrows grow,
Nor thorns infest the ground:
He comes to make His Blessings flow
Far as the curse is found.

He rules the World with Truth and Grace,
And makes the nations prove
The Glories of His Righteousness,
And Wonders of His Love.

As darkness increases, His Light shines brighter. "He comes to make his Blessings flow / Far as the Curse is found." We've seen his blessings flow in large measure in 2018! I performed in 15 states and eight nations, and Joyce spoke in six of those. Here are a few of the highlights:

January
Rich played Walter and served as acting coach, while Joyce was a key crew member, keeping actors warm between takes in "There," a short film that takes place during a rain storm! Joyce also played the mother of my character's daughter during a sociodrama to help her get ready for an emotional phone call, so we're counting Moriah's character as our 22nd screen child! You can watch "There" now: www.RichDrama.com/There.

February
A 20-year prayer was answered, and Rich got to perform at Christian Cultural Center.

March
Annual workshop at Princeton University, where we visited Jonathan Edward's gravestone which inspired a post about revival.

April
Performed Jonah for a gang unit on Rikers Island.

May
Performed in It's a Life Worth Living and The King's Messengers on the same day! That was a first! Later that month I performed several roles for The Adventum, a wonderful audio drama of the Book of Genesis, which is now available.

June
Taught, coached and performed at the Rocky Mountain Christian Filmmakers Camp, where we produced "Return on Investment."

A revival broke out in the theatre
department on our last night of the
Lamplighter Guild for CreativeDisciplines.

July
Taught and directed at the Lamplighter Guild for Creative Disciplines.

August
Performed in Denmark and Sweden on the same day! That was a first!

September
Performed in Norway, Finland, Germany, Liechtenstein, Switzerland, and Iceland.

October
Performed at the Hollywood Divine International Film Festival.

November
Performed I Dreamed I Was Free in New Mexico, the 43rd state in which I've taught and/or performed. Another first!

December
"Milk and Oranges" released, which was our film at the Rocky Mountain Christian Filmmakers Camp in 2017 and the directorial debut for Joyce. Joyce shared the Christmas Eve eve message at Westchester Chapel.

Here's my prayer for the Mastermedia Christmas party, which is for us all... though we don't wish a broken boiler on anyone! Click the arrow below, or if you're getting this through an emailing, visit www.RichDrama.com/Christmas2018.

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Registration is now open for the Rocky Mountain Christian Filmmakers Camp June 23-29.

EuroTour 2018 Photos

We finally sorted all of our photos from our trip to Europe this fall. You can find all the albums at www.SwinglesEuroTour2018.Shutterfly.com.

Here are the individual albums:

We started our trip in Copenhagen, Denmark...

Follow us into Tivoli Gardens and to other wonderful sites
in Copenhagen.

Then we presented in Denmark and Sweden on the same day...

Joyce was translated (through headphones) into Danish. Swedish translations
were used for Rich's performance of Big Fish Little Worm that evening.

We spent a couple of days in Randers and Ørsted, Denmark, where Joyce's grandfather and great grandparents lived...

Solve the mystery of the golden boot in
Randers and Ørsted, Denmark

Back to work in Oslo, where Rich performed I Dreamed I Was Free at the Nordic Black Theatre and Joyce shared her testimony...

...and we had a shockingly great time in Norway.

Then to Finland to perform for the Nazarenes and catch up with Timo, the Swingle's foreign exchange student when Rich was in college...

This church was our first stop on our tour of Helsinki.

Next we spent time in Sweden with Niklas, a foreign exchange student from Rich's youth, who inspired this whole trip. We were delighted to meet his wife, Jenny...

We loved spending the day with Niklas and Jenny on the island of Öland,
Sweden.

Then to Frankfurt to perform I Dreamed I Was Free, and Joyce brought the Sunday morning message...

After our presentations we relaxed with dear friends in the Rhine Valley,
Germany.

With all major presentations out of the way we started our 21st honeymoon in Switzerland...

We found lots of swans and lots of references to Rich's ancestor's brother,
Ulrich Zwingli, in Zurich, St. Gallen, and Wildhaus, Switzerland.

... with a stop in Liechtenstein...

...where we did an enacted prayer for the nation and stopped in
Triesenberg, Liechtenstein, which Rich's mother's
family is named after. 

...and then a 24-hour stop in Iceland on the way home...

It doesn't look like it, but we were about to dive into that water, which
was actually quite warm in Iceland.

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I Dreamed I Was Free tells the story of Quaker abolitionist John Woolman, who spoke against slavery a century before our Civil War.

Searching for Ulrich Zwingli in Switzerland

I'm descended from a brother of Ulrich Zwingli, the Swiss reformer and contemporary of Martin Luther. While we were in Switzerland we did some sleuthing...

If you're receiving this via email, visit www.Blog.RichDrama.com to watch the video.



Click here for photos we took in Zürich, St. Gallen and Wildhaus, Switzerland.

For more stories from this eight-nation trip, click EuroTour2018.

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A Clear Leading tells the story of Quaker abolitionist John Woolman, who spoke against slavery a century before our Civil War.

The Word Is a Fire and a Hammer

This photo from a church we just visited in Helsinki is a great illustration of the fire and hammer Jeremiah is talking about, as Pastor Randy Solomon shares below.

Early in the service Joyce and I shared about our recent trip to Europe.

Click the arrows below, or if you're reading this in an email you can click this link, to play the service elements:

Dr. Linda Warren's opening and our report on the trip:

Here's the enacted prayer I mention:



You can hear Joyce's talk in Oslo by clicking here.

And here's Pastor Randy Solomon's sermon on Jeremiah 23:23-32 with references to Daniel, who would have heard Jeremiah's word. He mentions the book The Insanity of God: A True Story of Faith Resurrected by Nik Ripkin. Dr. Linda opens:



The audio elements of this service are available for download free on iTunes, where you can also subscribe to our podcast. Search for "Westchester Chapel" on the iTunes Store.

If you want to more about starting a relationship with Jesus Christ visit www.WestchesterChapel.org/Salvation.

For more stories from our trip to Europe click EuroTour2018.

Photo courtesy of NicolettiPhoto.com.

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I Dreamed I Was Free tells the story of Quaker abolitionist John Woolman, who spoke against slavery a century before our Civil War.

Review in paper near Frankfurt

This is a Google translation of a review in DER BERGEN-ENKHEIMER 13.09.2018,
Mosaikkriche präsentiert Rich Swingle's Theaterstück:

Still up to date: the subject of "slavery"
Mosaic Church presents Rich Swingle's play

Bergen-Enkheim (zbs) - The old slave Dolly had a dream in South Carolina, in the United States of the 18th century. She had run and walked until she got to the sea and went swimming there. For people like her then an impossibility. The New Yorker Rich Swingle took up the story and presented the one-man play I Dreamed I Was Free in English for the Mosaic Church Bergen-Enkheim.

Dolly served with other slaves of a Christian white family in the country. John Woolman was the first in the family to think more deeply and philosophically about what it means to be a Christian, but still possess, sell, and trade in serfs as if they were animals. Woolman has kept a diary in his day that is still quoted today when it comes to slavery.

Rich Swingle performs regularly with his one-man play

More than 200 years later, in 1997, Rich Swingle had the idea to write a one-man play out of this story, with which he performs regularly. On his tour through Europe he visited Copenhagen, Brussels, [We did perform the play in Oslo at the Nordic Black Theatre. I performed another play, Big Fish Little Worm, on that trip in Helsinki, Arrie (Sweden) and an excerpt in Greve and Copenhagen (Denmark).] and Frankfurt, more precisely: The Riedsporthalle in Enkheim. "We were really happy when Swingle agreed," says Katharina Steinhauer, Pastor of the Mosaic Church, who made this event possible.

It's about faith in God, anger and despair

In the English-language play in which Swingle's wife directed [served as house manager. The original director was Kris Hilgaertner, and revisions to the play were directed by Mac Nelson.], it's all about faith in God, anger and despair. In the work, the protagonist tells an anecdote that describes the key message well: John had heard two slaves talking on his travels. One said to the other: "If these colonists attribute everything they do to their God and Jesus, then they must be the most terrible characters." [Actual quote from a dream: "If Christ directed them to use us in this sort, then Christ is a cruel tyrant."]  He then felt obliged to do something about the situation in his country and for the slaves, no matter how much it took to release them.

Rich Swingle takes on nine different roles in the play

Swingle took on a total of nine different roles in the play. He slipped from a sublime white slave owner and within seconds was in the skin of a dying young black man who will never see his child again. The story showed the transformation of the characters of Woolman, the slave Dolly and the slave trader Michael Worthington.

In the first part of the play John Woolman was presented as a small child. In the second part he is 19 and later he returns after a long journey as a 38-year-old and wants to convince Michael how immoral he acts.

The spectators are also required in the theater performance

Another special feature of the evening was how interactively Swingle designed it. So the spectators acted as "participants" in the "Philadelphia Yearly Meeting." They stood up against slavery and were so quiet between the first and second parts for several minutes after the request of the artist [to experience Quaker Silence], that you could hear a pin drop.

After the end of the play Swingle sat down on the "Hot Seat" and everyone could ask him questions about the characters, or to himself, of course in English. [Though people were encouraged to ask their questions in German, since there were people present who could interpret.] The approximately 100 spectators asked if the problem of slavery was still up-to-date and if so, what Woolman would do about it today. "Unfortunately, there are currently almost more serfs than at the time, though not in the US [in every nation on earth]. It is still very bad. In total there are nearly 30 million worldwide. What we can do is fundamentally change our behavior towards people of whatever origin. It is now, more than ever, important to show love and to believe," were then the words of the actor.



For more stories from this eight-nation trip, click Europe2018.

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I Dreamed I Was Free tells the story of Quaker abolitionist John Woolman, who spoke against slavery a century before our Civil War.

Joyce teaches on Jeremiah in Oslo

Joyce taught on Jeremiah for the Church of the Nazarene in Oslo, Norway. It is a Portuguese community with people from Cape Verde, Brazil and Norway.

Click the arrow below, or if you're reading this in an email you can click this link, to play the service:



Before Joyce taught, Rich performed Jonah. We were both really moved to share with this community.

Afterward we got to see the city, including the Oslo Opera House, which is in the photo above. That's Joyce in the far right.

We were in the city to perform I Dreamed I Was Free at the Nordic Black Theatre. Everyone seemed to feel that it went really well, and we're talking about a return with a longer run. Here's my report...

This is the first of a series of posts I'm planning that will share details from this trip with performances in Denmark, Sweden, Norway, Finland and Germany: Europe2018.

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A Clear Leading tells the story of Quaker abolitionist John Woolman, who spoke against slavery a century before our Civil War.

Love in Denmark

Joyce shares about God's love from 1 John 4:7-21 for the Nazarene Church in Greve, Denmark, just outside of Copenhagen.

Joyce was interpreted into Danish through headphones for those who needed it, so she doesn't pause for interpretation, but you can hear the interpreter speaking into the headphone system.

Click the arrow below to play the message, or if you're getting this via email, click here.



Joyce shares how she committed her life to Jesus Christ. If you're interested in knowing more about Jesus, visit www.RichDrama.com/MyPassion.

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I Dreamed I Was Free tells the story of Quaker abolitionist John Woolman, who spoke against slavery a century before our Civil War.