Famous Last Words

I played a few roles alongside my friends and colleagues Rachel Marley and Nato Jacobson in a new podcast called Famous Last Words. In Episode 2, I play some minor roles and Sir Isaac Newton. It's produced by Ethan Hill, whose wonderful family worked with me on A Matter of Perspective.

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In A Matter of Perspective, I play a disgruntled office worker, whose life is disrupted in a way that reminds him of his first love.

Jonathan Park: The One True God

I played two roles in Jonathan Park Series 18, The One True God:

Jacob Ben Dod on Disk 2, Track 2, starting at 5:15

and

Bapary Babu on Disk 4, Track 2, starting at 12:00

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I released “Pentecost: Beyond the Imagination,” a scene from my one-man play, The Acts, at www.RichDrama.com/Pentecost.

Lamplighter Theatre

Crystal Van Artsdalen, Rebekah Stought,
Rachel Marley and Morgan Fairbanks
have been my students at MasterWorks
 and The Rocky Mountain Christian
Filmmakers Camp.

I played several roles and served as Afghan accent coach in the audio dramas Escape from the Eagle's Nest and The Giant Killer for Lamplighter Theatre, part of Lamplighter Ministries (www.Lamplighter.net).

Both shows were broadcast on over 1600 radio stations in 30 nations.

The Giant Killer is now available, and on that page you can hear my voice in the Behind the Scenes Recordings at 19 seconds and 1:23.

Escape from the Eagle's Nest is also available. You can see and hear my contributions in the video below...

Both stories are based on books by A.L.O.E., which stands for A Lady of England. It was the pseudonym she used to get those and many other books published in the 1800s.

In the booth with Israel Oyelumade,
Rachel Marley and David Sanborn.

After I was cast as a cook (to perform the role, not to actually prepare food), I was asked to recommend someone who could play an Afghan who grows from a little girl into a married woman. I recommended some of my students, and they chose Rachel Marley. Besides being my student numerous times she was on our performing arts team in Sochi during the 2014 Olympics. What a delight to work with her and have several scenes together.

A few weeks after they cast Rachel, producer John Fornof told me there were visa issues. They used to record in London, so that's where all their contacts are. John’s US contacts are union actors. He asked if I could get the word out to my nonunion contacts in case the visas did not come through since just about everyone besides Rachel and I were coming from the UK. This was the first time they invited people to watch the process, so dozens of observers were signed up, coming to Mt. Morris, NY, from as far as North Dakota.

Nathan "Nato" Jacobson and I have
been a part of four films together.

I sent out about 350 emails to students and colleagues who turned in 189 auditions. John and executive producer Mark Hamby said they had perfect peace about the situation and were sure the visas would come through but if not, God would provide. When the final word came that the visas were denied John and team went through all the auditions in two days, normally a two-week process! The casts were announced on Friday and Saturday and we began recording on Monday!

Garry Nation and I (who share three
film credits) got to play giant brothers:
He was Sloth, and I was Selfishness.

The only one from the UK was Israel Oyelumade, who volunteered his time to bypass the need for a visa! Before I performed Beyond the Chariots for the community he shared how the Lord had led him to play Jesus in a massive Passion play. It was done outdoors with 300 actors.

I was delighted that Lamplighter Theatre cast four of my students, and that I got to perform with colleagues from numerous films. My friend David Sanborn was cast in twelve of the 17 roles for which he auditioned, and then he picked up others along the way.

Working with so many great friends in and of itself made it one of my favorite weeks, but the highlight came through a new friend, Akmal. Patrick Powell the director of Escape from the Eagle's Nest found him on an internet search. Akmal lived his first twelve years in Southern Afghanistan, where the story takes place! He translated passages from The Sermon on the Mount, Revelation and Isaiah into Pashto, and then he came up with a tune inspired by music from his homeland and recorded himself singing the Scripture while he played keyboards underneath it.

John Fornof and I in London where
he directed me in The Dragon and
the Raven.

Our director for Escape from
the Eagle's Nest, Patrick Powell,

is one of a very small number

of actors who have performed

St. John in Exile by Dean Jones.

David Sanborn sang the Scriptures with our friend's tune, then he led the rest of the cast humming the tune. We were portraying the Afghanis who began by shouting down the foreigner. Then, as they were hearing words of life in their heart language, sung with a familiar tune they quieted down, and slowly started to join, humming the tune. I got to direct small groups who joined as the Scripture moved along. Once all of them had joined in, something extraordinary occurred. As had happened when he was singing the Pashto translation, David became overwhelmed with what was happening. We were all touched at a very deep level, so much so that everyone observing, including the director, were weeping. Executive Producer Mark Hamby compared it to the tongues of fire that fell on the disciples at Pentecost (Acts 2)!

I'm so thrilled with how it turned out!

Throughout production there were Lamplighter Live students observing the process and jumping into the group scenes!

Here's the story of how it all came together:

Below you can hear my voice at :02, 1:03, where I'm performing with two former students, and see my "sword fight" at 1:05.


Below you can hear me at :25.

Providence

Our poster was miraculously in the main

lobby of AMC Empire. It could have gone

anywhere in the labyrinth of 25 screens.

I played the adult male lead role of Mitchell Little in the feature-length music video, Providence, which had a limited nationwide theatrical release through AMC Independent, which opened Valentine's Weekend, 2016. It's now won or been nominated for over 80 awards.

One of the venues was the historical AMC Empire Theatre on Times Square.  Click here to see how that was an answer to an eight-year prayer.

It's now beginning to roll out across the land, and you can schedule a screening in your area.

It's now available on DVD and digital download.

On February 12th and 13th, I was joined for a Q and A by actors Stacey Bradshaw (Touched by Grace) and Emily Knapp (The Good Book) who play Teen and Young Rachel, Apolonia Davalos (The Perfect Wedding) who plays Beautiful Woman at Church, as well as Jenn Gotzon (Frost/Nixon).

Providence is a charming modern silent film from the makers of The Good Book, their first silent film, which has been nominated for 21 awards and has won over half of those. Providence has already won three awards at the Faith Film Fest: "Best Story," "Best Directing," and "Best Lyrical Music!"

The story is only told through movement and brand new songs written for this film. I like to call it a feature-length montage.

I play the adult version of a character who has known a girl most of his life. Circumstances and shyness have kept them apart, but the Lord brings them together in His timing. I loved being a part of this charming film because it’s such a beautiful picture of how the Lord is at work in bringing couples together. I’m so pleased with the final result, and I love that its theatrical release means more people will see God’s love on film!

It premiered in Franklin, TN, on November 8.

Christians may want to know:
The Dove Association rates it "Faith-Friendly" for ages 12 and over. You can read more details here: Providence.

Director, Sharon Wilharm, wrote about how the film came into existence: You're Invited on Our Filmmaking Journey.





I was in Nashville over three weekends, and the dailies were looking great!

In the run-up to the February 12 nationwide release through AMC Independent they are releasing a series of music videos:















Here's a rough cut of my character's proposal scene:



Interviews from the premiere:

Courageous Love

Joyce and I play husband and wife in this intriguing romance, produced and directed by Daniel Knudsen, who I met on the set of Christmas Grace. He also directed me in Creed of Gold, The King's Messengers, and the upcoming film, Lifestone Velocity.

There's a scene in which Joyce and I are playing with our characters' children. The plan had been for me to swing a backpack around in Central Park, and then the actor playing my character's son would be spun around in a park in Michegan by someone wearing the clothes I had on in Central Park.

Just before we filmed with the backpack I told Daniel we might be able to find children who would want to be in the movie. We prayed at the top of a hill, walked to the bottom, and there was a family with a boy and a girl the right age for our film family. Daniel explained the idea to their father in a very professional way, and he listened with a very stoic look on his face. After Daniel finished, there was a brief pause, and then he said... "Sure." We had such a great time filming with them, and it turned out that they lived close enough to Detroit to see the premiere, which made us all so excited. Unfortunately Daniel said, "They lived in Wisconsin and had a scheduling conflict." He sent them a screener link and said, "They LOVED the movie..." and, "the dad told me that this made his son want to pursue acting."

In January, 2017, it was in theaters in Michigan, Minnesota and Illinois, and it's now available for streaming and on DVD through CourageousLoveMovie.com and it was launched on www.PureFlix.com on Valentine's Weekend, facing off against 50 Shades Darker. In the interview below Daniel does a great job of expressing how Hollywood tries to tell a compelling love story, which has elements of the greatest love story, the Gospel.

Daniel has a real heart for the Lord and a vision for telling God's truth in powerful ways, and we were thrilled with how it turned out! It has one of the most creative arguments for the reality of God I've seen on film.

The first two films in which we played husband and wife were Indescribable and The Unexpected Bar Mitzvah.

When Joyce and I had our pre-engagement counseling session, our counselor drilled us with all the questions you don't want to ask when you're getting to know each other: political affiliation, denomination, etc. We were firing on so many cylinders I thought it would be safe to throw in some humor. When the counselor asked how many kids we each wanted I threw out twelve, just for laughs. Joyce nearly fell out of her chair. We have a big laugh about it now, especially since Rather to Be Chosen has brought us our twelfth screen child!

Our screen children connected with
me at the 2016 Christian Worldview
Film Festival.

Since then we played husband and wife in Mayflower II and A Matter of Perspective, so we now have 20 screen children and one screen grandchild!

Read the story on how this shot came
to be by clicking here.

Courageous Love was an official selection at the 2016 Christian Worldview Film Festival with the original title, Rather to Be Chosen.

"The Making of Rather to Be Chosen" was an official selection at the 2015 Christian Worldview Film Festival.