Rich & Joyce Swingle

Paradise Lost

Here is the full performance of Paradise Lost for Narrator (with Percussion), Oboe, and Bassoon by Terry B. Ewell. Westchester Chapel hosted the first public performance of the introduction. Since then it was performed at the International Double Reed Conference in Tempe, Arizona, and at the MasterWorks Festival.

Rich Swingle, Narrator, percussion; Doris DeLoach, oboe; Terry B. Ewell, bassoon. 1. Introduction. 2. Adam. 3. Eve.

The Mighty Macs

This film is just stupendous! It's right up there with Miracle and Hoosiers. You seriously won't believe it, even though everyone where pins that say, "Believe!" Best of all, your in a theatre where everyone is rooting for people dedicated to serving the Lord. Awesome!

The Secrets of Jonathan Sperry

We LOVED The Secrets of Jonathan Sperry! Such a sweet story. It was produced by Chad Gundersen, who produced A Christmas Snow in which I played Claud. The casting director was Beverly Kennedy Holloway, who is a regular at MasterWorks. I was a huge Love Boat fan, and Gavin MacLeod was one of the first actors I ever met. He's a gem, and his work in this film is so touching. Thrilled to hear him say this role was the pinacle of his career.

Report on Asia

This morning I reported on our recent adventures in Taiwan, Singapore, Oregon and Writers' Block. For photos from the our time in Asia visit SwinglesInAsia2011.Shutterfly.com, and for more stories visit this blog's September and October 2011 archives.

This service is available for download free on iTunes, where you can also subscribe to our podcast. Search for "Westchester Chapel" on the iTunes Store.

Report on Writers' Block

This morning at Westchester Chapel I shared about the overwhelmingingly positive experience I had performing the role of Forrest Woods in Writers' Block.

Freud's Last Session

After our board meetings today we went out to see shows. Most had already Freud's Last Session in NYC the month it opened (July 2010). That production is now moving to another theatre and is currently the longest running play Off-Broadway. But I've been out of town so much I haven't been able to take it in. So I saw it here in Atlanta.

Phenomenal!

The Screenwriters

I'm excited to have played the Hollywood director Forrest "Woodsy" Woods in this fun 1940's film about a couple of writers who are locked in a room and can't come out until the script is done... at 8am the next morning.

It debuted to a packed room with about 50 people standing at the Christian Worldview Film Festival in San Antonio, March 2015. It received the Audience Choice Award Runner Up.

You can watch it now: TheScreenwritersMovie.com and on Amazon Prime.

Jason Burkey plays one of the writers. He played the lead role in For the Glory in which I played his soccer coach.

Jenn Gotzon plays the ingenue, and Jim McKeny is my character's producer. Jenn and Jim both performed in Alone Yet Not Alone with me, and several of the behind-the-scenes folks, including executive producer George Escobar and casting director Rebekah Cook, who played my daughter in Indescribable, also worked on Alone.

The Screenwriters Website Teaser from Ian A. Reid on Vimeo.

I got to report on this overwhelmingly positive experience at Westchester Chapel.

Response from Taiwan

We've been quite busy lately, so now that I'm flying home from Oregon I'm finally looking through responses from students at Morrison Academy in Taiwan where Joyce and I led the Spiritual Life Week. I'm weeping over some of the encouraging things the seventh graders wrote! Here are a few samples:

"Dear Mr. and Mrs. Swingle...it's hard to believe how you can sacrifice everything for God. :) I hope that I'll be able to do that when I grow up."

"Thank you for coming all the way to Taiwan to teach us."

"I...am very grateful that you would come to our school to talk to us."

"I enjoyed this week's talks."

"Thank you for bringing me closer to God."

"I think the acting helps lead people closer to God."

"We really learned a lot this week."

"I learned many new things I never knew."

"Now I am comforted to know that God will never leave me because of what Jesus did."

"I learned a lot about trust. I will always remember it."

"I learned to trust God even when it seems impossible."

"I learned that...we should always give thanks to God."

"I learned that God will make scary things exciting."

"I...learned that serving God can be fun and done in many ways."

"Thank you for teaching us about wisdom...and telling us that it is wonderful to trust and obey God."

"Combining acting and an interesting perspective on the Bible made this Spiritual Life Week a memorable one."

"Before you came, I didn't realize how important trust was... There (were) a lot of times that I was lost. Now I know that when we trust God He guides us through the valley of the shadow of death."

"I learned... that knowing God is the best thing you can ever have! It guides you through darkness and comforts you when you're heartbroken. I know that sometimes I may feel forsaken by God, but He's always with us."

"I have learned that nothing can really make you happy except for Jesus' love. I have my entire life to learn and serve Jesus."

"One thing I learned was that you can always trust the Lord."

"Two things I've learned: Trust in the Lord through darkness and rough times. Always believe that God will be there for you even if you don't see Him."

"It really made me think about my life and how I can change it to make it better."

"I learned that trusting God really can make a difference, and I shouldn't be afraid when God asks me to do something; just do it, and great things will happen!"

"Thank you for changing my life."

"It has been an awesome week. Thanks!"

"Our school feels encouraged!"

"We will miss you!"

"Please visit us again sometime."

Joyce and I had so much fun working together we'd love to do Spiritual Life Weeks all the time. If you know of a school that has a Spiritual Life Week, please send them to http://RichDrama.com.

Performing at my alma mater

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.

Uncle Eric for Singapore Youth Day

I got to perform Beyond the Chariots at an invitation-only event at the Joyden Theatre at the Iluma Centre (pictured below) for Singapore's Youth Day. There were about 250 children and their families that came from around this island nation from a variety of churches. Some were invited through the Good News Club, which was an organization that helped me grow in my faith when I was a young boy. As the children came sweeping into the theatre I began to weep. I was so moved by the potential in their lives. Our prayer is that the seeds that were planted last night will grow for their lifetimes!

Spiritual Life in Taiwan

We had a great time leading the Spiritual Life Week at Morrison Academy in Taichung, Taiwan!

We performed and spoke in their chapels each day for high school and middle school on the theme of Trusting in God.

On Tuesday we led a class on improv which closed with enacted prayer (http://RichDrama.com/Workshops) and on Thursday night we did worship and more enacted prayer ending with a spectacular enactment in which about a dozen of them prayed for their friends who don't yet know the Lord. It was touching to see their love for their peers!

We closed by inviting the students into our "tent" as shepherds and treating them to matzo and hummus while we explained the 23rd Psalm.

We had some one-on-one sessions with students that signed up, taught in individual classrooms as young as Kindergarten. One of the second graders asked us if we liked God. We prayed often with them in groups big and small to dedicate their lives to the Lord.

The eighth graders watched trailers of all our films: http://films.richdrama.com.

The sixth and seventh graders sang "Trust and Obey" to show us they were following the theme.

The Women of Worth class was Rich's 16th women's group he addressed, and then two of the women's small groups asked him to answer questions and the speech class was all girls, so he's now up to 19 women's groups!

The Men of Honor class invited Rich to address them as Eric Liddell, which was a fun way to expose them to an honorable man and preview the Sunday night performance of Beyond the Chariots (http://RichDrama.com/BeyondtheChariots). There were at least three in attendance there who knew people who were in the internment camp where Eric Liddell died.

Monday we took the high speed (over 160mph) train to Kaosiung to perform Big Fish Little Worm (http://RichDrama.com/BigFishLittleWorm) for the Morrison campus there, made up of grades K-9. The photo is with some of the ninth graders.

On our last day in Taiwan we did faculty devotions and Big Fish Little Worm for Morrison's Taipei campus (K-9) followed by seven classes of all but three grades. We had a ball!

I'm writing en route to Singapore, where I'll be performing. Joyce is also in the air but--sadly--she's heading the other direction to get back home in time to speak in Pittsburgh: http://itinerary.richdrama.com.

You can see our photos at http://SwinglesInAsia2011.Shutterfly.com.

Sipping in Singapore

I'm sipping a coconut under a palm tree watching hundreds of ships go in and out of the busiest harbor on earth as I recuperate from our wonderfully busy schedule in Taiwan and recharge for performances here this weekend: http://itinerary.richdrama.com .

Meditate on the Word

Joyce got to preach this morning on Psalm 1 at the House of Blessing Church in Taichung, Taiwan.

Introduction by Dan Robinson, principal of Morrison Academy. Translated into Mandarin.

James Hudson Taylor, V

James' grandfather, the great-great grandson of Hudson Taylor, saw Beyond the Chariots three times on our different trips to Hong Kong. You can read more about him here.

We were delighted to connect with James throughout the week and to pray with him tonight.

Can't wait to see how the Lord uses your willing heart, James! We'll be praying for you!

Love,
Rich & Joyce

Indescribable Trailer

They just posted the trailer to Indescribable, the movie in which Joyce and I play Mr. and Mrs. Lehman.
Indescribable Trailer from Indescribable The Movie on Vimeo.

An amazing start to our adventures in Taiwan

It has been so clear to us that people are praying for this journey by the timing of the entire day! Every place we went the bus was ready to go within five minutes of us getting there! That morning we got our directions based on the wrong airport, thereby putting us at a station we wouldn't have gone to to catch our bus to our hotel, but that was exactly the station we needed to catch a free shuttle to Taipei 101, the second tallest building in the world: a perfect place to prayer walk the entire city in a matter of minutes. One bus that was supposed to come in 10 minutes came in 1, while I was buying water, but the next was right behind it, and we loaded within 5 minutes of my return. That bus happened to be the one that English speakers boarded just before we needed to disembark, and they were able to confirm where to get off.

We were remarking that every time we messed up, the Lord used it for the good.
Then, when we checked in at our hotel they told us that our reservation was at a hotel in Taipei, not in Jinshan where we had just arrived! The hotel where we stood had only one room available, and it was about $1500/ night more than the room we'd already paid for. Don't worry, that is in Taiwanese dollars, and they didn't charge us for the increase since the two hotels were connected. We chose the site because it is on the beach AND has hot springs, so I'm not certain how the website put our reservation at the other hotel! Our room was usually more expensive because it had it's own hot springs. Once we arrived, we couldn't figure out how to make the water hot, so we were on our way to ask the front desk when we struck up a conversation with a family that spoke a bit of English. They ended up taking us to a night market, one of the things we'd hoped to do! Upon returning to our room the hot water in the hot springs worked! We gave the family a link to a page I set up this morning just for them to download the Eric Liddell documentary I worked on.

The timing of this morning just capped it all off! I went for a swim in the ocean and had some of the best waves I've ever body surfed. Upon reaching the shore they closed the beach. I guess the waves were so good because there's a typhoon out at sea!

As I write we're riding through some beautiful, lush, mountainous countryside, praying for this whole amazing, 100 year old (this year) nation.

We're now at Morrison Academy and are in the middle of Day 2 for Spiritual Emphasis Week: http://itinerary.richdrama.com.

The Northwest Territories

Joyce and I are flying over the northernmost Canadian province en route to Taiwan to lead the Spiritual Emphasis Week at Morrison Academy in Taichung.

Heading to Singapore

I'll be performing Beyond the Chariots at Joyden Hall at Iluma (near Bugis Junction) on 1 October at 7.30 pm.

It's by invitation only, so if you missed the note I sent out please message me on Facebook: Facebook.com/RichSwingle and I'll make sure there's a place for you.
Rich

Walking in Victory on 9/11/11

I opened worship at Westchester Chapel this morning.

I'll be performing Five Bells for 9/11 tonight in NYC at 8pm: RichDrama.com/FiveBells.

Five Bells for 9/11 in NYC on 9/11/11

For about a year it's been on my heart to offer my one-man play Five Bells for 9/11 in New York City on 9/11/11.

Shortly after those tragic events that changed the world, I took a workshop put on by the Billy Graham Association empowering lay people to counsel those who were traumatized. One of the things they told us was that it's important to bring events back to our memories, especially when we can find positive memories that were there, too. That's exactly what Five Bells for 9/11 does.

The play tells the stories of three people that were directly impacted: Bruce Van Hine, a fire fighter for Squad 41 in the FDNY; Lana Ho Shing, a mutual funds specialist for Morgan Stanley, and Father Brian Jordan, a Franciscan priest at the Church of St. Francis.

Ann Van Hine, the wife of one of the characters in the play said, "We shouldn't be coping, we should be hoping." It is my deepest desire that this play will bring hope and healing to those who experience it.

If you're in or near the city I hope you can join us. Or if you know of someone that would be encouraged by it's message please invite them.

It will be performed at 400 W 43rd St at the corner of 9th Ave. Tell the security guard that you're there for an event in The Ellington Room. The play will begin at 8pm. There is no charge and no offering will be collected.

The play will also be performed at the home church of Bruce and Ann Van Hine on September 9 at 7pm. For more information click here.

That was lovely. Thank you.
--Robert M. Fresco
Academy Award winning filmmaker Checklosovakia 1968

Rich, thanks so much for such a powerful and moving performance and message.
--Melanie M. Jeschke
Author of The Oxford Chronicles and Jillian Dare

Rich & Joyce Swingle

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