Awoken

There was a knock at my door. I was up fairly late doing final edits to the film element of my students' performance tonight, for which we'll be bused into Toronto. I was fulfilling our theme for the week by being "deeper" in sleep than I usually am at that time, and I thought, I'm missing the bus! Instead, one of the faculty members wanted to share how profoundly the enacted prayer we prayed for her on the first night had been answered through the week! What an awesome way to start the day.

Last night was Elective Night, and one of the featured electives was the one for children of faculty. They did an enacted prayer (pictured here) for us. The prayer was that the children could help us adults taste and see and hear, touch, and smell that the Lord is good!

My favorite enacted prayer was for me on that first day: God gave the kid portraying me blessings, which were personified by two kids bouncing up to me. The prayer was answered, and God gave me bounce all through the week.

They just announced that the Salvation Army is going to launch the first team from Canada to go and minister to those that have fled New Orleans! Our enacted prayer is being answered!

Revolution!

Stephen court is advocating MMCCXX: Two thousand cell groups in 200 countries/territories in 20 years. Young people are getting together in groups of four to six, moving to a new city or country and getting jobs there for the purpose of sharing the Gospel. The concept is laid out in Stephen's book (which he co-wrote with Aaron White): Revolution. It can be ordered at ArmyBarmy.com.

They heard and they came

Last night one young man took the mic and shared that he had run all over the camp grounds and could hear us everywhere. He said we should praise God so loudly that we could be heard in the next town over.

Later something moved him and he fell on his face at the paper cross that had been set up for prayer. I knelt down to pray for him, and though he was shouting his prayers and my ear was only inches from his mouth the praise was so loud I couldn't make out a word. He sobbed through the cross as you can see in the picture. Several other youth joined in a prayer huddle, and during a "slow dance" with the Lord they prayed over my ministry: a very powerful moment.

Later, completely refreshed, the young man who had sobbed through the cross came running up to me to say we had been heard in the next town over. Three young men came to rock. One of them stuck around until curfew. He said he's coming back tonight. Pray he brings his friends and that they all fall on The Rock.

Three hours

The band set up in the middle, and we danced with the Lover of our souls for almost 3 straight hours! Our worship was only broken by scripure reading, testimonies, prayer, and an enacted prayer.

One young man has been watching it all but had never been stirred himself. Last night he asked God to reveal himself, and He did. The young man came sobbing to the mic, confessing sins and testifying to God's movement in his heart. We physically lifted him up, over our heads to pray for him. Later I was told that he acccepted the Lord as his Savior there on the "dance floor."

The highlight for me was to see the young man who accepted the Lord after The Revelation, Monday night, dancing with all of his might before his new Intimate.

Choreodrama

Company 150, a troupe of young people from around the Territory, just performed a choreodrama (mix of dance, mime, and acting). Wow.

They base their name on Psalm 150 and have been doing drama, worship, and choreodrama, drawing everything that has breath to praise the Lord all summer, culminating here at Territorial.

They led the way into a session on holiness that went over by almost an hour the Spirit was moving so powerfully on us. It wasn't in an ecstatic way like on Monday after The Revelation. Graeme Press, who flew over from from Sydney, Australia, gave us an image: Monday night was the fast dance; this morning was the moment when you look into your partner's eyes and realize who it is you're with.

Tonight is known as Cry Night. Jesus, meet us on the dance floor.

Off the collar

Christine MacMillan, the Commissioner of this Territory (all of Canada and Bermuda) for the Salvation Army, greeted the Territorial School of Music and Gospel Arts during our midweek festival. She brought Kirk Guthrie up to illustrate how it's not about the externals but about the heart. She said the Salvation Army regulations require women to keep their hair off their collars. She asked Kirk for his hair dresser's number since his do fits the bill.

Tonight an online magazine and blog for Salvo youth is being launched: BoundlessMagazine.com. The first 50 to contribute short articles are in the running for a free iPod Shuffle.

This is God...

[This post was published in Christianity and Theatre, Fall/Winter 2005.]

...at least she played the role of God in enacted prayer.

I've been teaching enacted prayer to different electives all week. It's a prayer form in which a real prayer request is prayed for through a form of mime. Different actors take on the roles of those being prayed for.

On the first day I taught it to the kids of faculty. Kylie Way, in the picture, lept up to play God in a number of prayers. That night we did an enacted prayer for a family, so the kids actually came up and played kids. It was awesome!

This morning we did an enacted prayer for New Orleans [just after Hurricane Katrina hit]. Everyone who was in one of the classes came up to either play someone who died, someone who was grieving, or a servant of God bringing comfort. The gal playing God actually started raising people from the dead! Then our chaplain, Danielle Strickland, led everyone to either be someone from New Orleans or someone comforting them.

Lord, hear our prayer! Raise New Orleans up from this death as a city known not for its sin but for its love for the Lord! Amen.

Revival Fire Fall!

Thank you so much for your prayers! I could seriously feel them all day long.

Tonight I performed The Revelation and when I was done I added something spontaneously: I offered to put the mark of the cross on people's foreheads if they wanted to declare that they were a servant of the Lord.

One of the first fellows to come running up to be sealed was a young man who accepted Jesus tonight as covering for his sins.

The band played "one more song" as people filed out to be sealed. About 20 had been sealed when all heaven broke loose! We praised out of control to just a drum beat for over half an hour! This is day 3 of 8. Pray these students will keep going deeper.

I'm Diving In!

This afternoon I'm flying to Toronto to perform The Revelation, teach, and direct at the Salvation Army's Territorial School for Music and Gospel Arts. Last year it was AMAZING. Click here for my reflections on last year's event: Territorial '04.

This year the director of the program, Len Ballantine, is expecting even greater things:

The news is good. We will have at least 145 delegates plus faculty at Territorial this year! That is a significant increase over last season and the third year running showing an increase. While we know its not just about 'numbers' the stats do tell us quite a bit:
1. Music and the Arts continues to provide a relevant point of contact with the current generation.
2. The young people must like what's on offer.
3. They are spiritually hungry and we believe the 'buzz' is bringing them in.
4. The Lord has seen fit to honour our prayers and add to our responsibility. We accept the challenge.

I'll appreciate your prayers all week.

The View from the Castle

Preshow
We're munching our dinner in the castle that overlooks the theatre which hosts Shakespeare in the park and tonights Two Gentlemen of Verona.

Intermission
Very cleverly reconceived. I see why it won the Tony in 1972. The music (yup) is by Galt MacDermot (Hair) and John Guare, who also had a hand in adapting the script so that it could be understood by people on the streets when it toured the five boroughs in'71.

Buster the dog just proved the adage that you never want to be on stage with a baby or an animal. The pooch is almost as much of a scene stealer as Valentine's servant, played by John Cariani, the forensics tech from Law and Order.

Curtain
The scene stealer of the second act was Julia's servant, played by Megan Lawrence, twice nominated for the Helen Hayes Award..

Its sensibilities remain in the '70's, with the exception of a spoof on the aerial combat of The Matrix and when the Duke of Milan rolled in on a Razor.

On Line

I'm waiting on line (for West Coast readers that's how they say "in line" out here) to see Two Gentlemen of Verona at Shakespeare in Central Park. Tickets are free but they don't give them out for five more hours. I'm 23rd in line.

Usually by this point I'd be behind all the folks in the photo (now only 3.5 hours left), but reviews don't come out until tomorrow. Unless it's panned the lines will be longer starting tomorrow. With press in the house tonight could be the best show of the run! It's a gorgeous day. The woman two places behind me said after waiting for hours for the last Shakespeare in the Park it was rained out.

The longest lines in their history were for The Seagull. Mike Nichols directed Kevin Kline, Meryl Streep, Philip Seymour Hoffman, Natalie Portman, and on and on. John Goodman had the smallest role. The woman next to me said she had a friend that got on line at 4 am. (I'm surprised she got a seat. I was there at 8 pm the night before.) One of the employees was counting people and tried to stir someone who had fallen asleep under a bush. They discovered the person was dead.

"That's worse than rain," declared the woman two spots down.

Mini-Honeymoon

After Joyce's major surgery (RichDrama.com/Joyce) and my very full week at TAM (RichDrama.com/NewsBlog. Scroll down.) we snuck away for a couple of beach days on Long Island.

#2 at iTunes

My cousin, Nick Brophy, played guitar and wrote two songs
for Hootie & the Blowfish's CD, which was just released today: Looking for Lucky. Both songs deal with painful relationships. Right now the album is #2 at iTunes.

#1 Instrumental Metal

My friend David Wallace, who teaches viola at Julliard among a number of other things, just had his album Nahum / What a Friend debut as CD Baby's #1 selling instrumental metal CD.

The Lord is sweeter than chocolate

Our final service culminated in multisensory worship, complete with a chocolate fountain. It looks solid even from a foot away, but the chocolate is flowing. Our chaplain, Janet Munn, said that honey was the sweetest substance when the Psalms were being written, but today, chocolate is at the top of our list. So as we nibbled fruit drenched from the flow of confection we made our confession of God's sweetness in our lives.

We also had the opportunity to wash each other's hands, heads, and/or feet. We could gaze into mirrors and contemplate what it means to be made in the image of God. And, we savor the aroma of scented candles as we thought about how our prayers are a sweet aroma to God.

The revival of Thursday night has translated into action. The next morning we pledged to raise $10,000 by December 1, and $50,000 by TAM next year to build up an orphanage in Africa. The performance last night, which went very well, brought in $1,864 bringing our total to $2,659.

We're well on our way. If you would like to pledge to support these heroes for the poor, send an email to Ian Evans. He'll send you information on how to give.

My small group

These are the guys in my small group. Back: Kelly, Tony, Daniel, Elisha. Front: Terrylee, and Evan. We closed our session with the footwashing from my short piece, Journey to the Garden.

Pray for our whole conservatory as we perform our final piece tonight at 7:30 EST.

Revival revives

Most mornings I've been dragging myself out of bed, since our schedule for TAM is jam packed, but this morning I all but sprang from the springs after what happened last night.

Carol Jaudes (CATS) performed with her troupe: Ian Evans, Chris Stoker, and Amber Peacock (my assistant here), with Karen Krinjak at piano. The play was Treasures of Eternity, written by a former TAM instructor, Becki Philips, and directed by my agent, Dale Savidge. The play was about heroes of the Salvation Army: people who made a significant difference in the lives of those around them. After the play, our chaplain, Janet Munn, leapt to the stage to challenge our students to become the heroes of the next generation. She invited them to pray toward that end, and one of the faculty members acknowledged that repentance was a part of preparing to be heroes. One of the students in my small group made an actual confession of a specific sin, and we covered him with prayer. Then others all around the room began confessing and praying for forgiveness and for other specific requests. We were sobbing.

It was awesome!

Pray that in the remaining three days the Holy Spirit will visit us again. For any online this morning we'd appreciate specific prayer over this morning's group devotion. Pray that our worship and prayer would be impacted in a deep way by what happened last night.

Like Janet said last night, "Fill us again, Lord. We leak!"

We've got revival breaking out!

If you're online pray for us!

David and Bathsheba

This is the cast I'm working with this week: Amber (my assistant), Christine, Liz, Steven, Daniel (kneeling), David, and Tyler. What a great bunch! Pray for us as we bring the story of David and Bathsheba to life.

On our way in to see Fiddler

We had intended to take an after shot when we were all wiped out, pulling into the parking lot after midnight, but our conversations about the show kept popping! Our group got seats on the front row, so the only way to have been closer to the action would have been to be on stage ourselves.

Before hand I took my group to my office at the Helen Hayes Theatre, where the stage manager was kind enough to give us a backstage tour of the smallest Broadway theatre.

The 48 hour commute

Our theme at TAM this year is Be a Hero, based on the book by the same title by Wesley Campell and Stephen Court (who was one of the leaders of the Territorial School of Music and Gospel Arts near Toronto last year. Stephen and his wife, Danielle Strickland led us into revival).

We're listening to a hero right now: Vergilio flew all the way from Mozambique to study the arts at TAM and to tell us about the work he does all over Africa ministering to AIDS orphans.

He said most of the people in Mozambique are HIV+, but still there is a stigma attached to the kids who's parents die of AIDS. The Salvation Army hires him to help the kids realize they're loved by God just as much as the other children.

See the music. Hear the silence.

We experienced PUSH Theatre Co. last night, who brought a double standing ovation with their work that was part mime, part dance, part strength/balance a la Cirque du Soleil. It was absolutely amazing, and this morning they worked with us, teaching us some of their technique. Tre cool.

Drinking God through her palms

We're hearing Ann Van Cleave sing "The Broadway Boogiewoogie" before seeing her on Broadway tomorrow night playing Miralla in Fiddler on the Roof.

She said the choreographer told them the reason he has their hands in the air so much is because he wants them drinking God through the palms of their hands.

Out there

This is the 5th year of the Salvation Army's Territorial Arts Ministries' Conservatory.

Right now Carol Jaudes, former CAT and director of the conservatory, is asking students how they've incorporated things they've leaned during previous years in their lives. We're hearing about people starting dance, theatre, and mime programs in their local corps (churches) and colleges all over the Northeast..

In the photo Emily Furman (one of my students 2 years ago) is sharing about an improv club she started at her school.

Pray for us this week as we equip these young people to go out and do more.

Moved

The performance this morning blessed me immensely. I know that's not necessarily how it's supposed to work, but this piece (Journey to the Garden--listed under short pieces) always brings me closer the Lord by portraying Him.

This church, Valley Community in Poughkeepsie, has grown over the years that I've been performing for them (you're only seing half of the sanctuary on a summer Sunday). They built a church at a major crossroads (as our church is called to do: scroll down to Westchester Chapel) and they've grown three times in size in less than 2 years.

It's downright scary...

..staying with people who have The Creature from the Black Lagoon as their guard dog.

Actually the Saloomey family has 5 guard dogs (but only 19 legs between them). They get host of the year award for providing corn on the cob picked that morning, eggs laid the day before, and 1st c. accoutrements for my performance tomorrow morning.

The Mighty Hudson

I'm cruising up the Hudson en route to Poughkeepsie, where I'll perform Journey to the Garden tomorrow morning.

In my rehearsal this morning I connected in a very deep way Jesus' prayer in the Garden of Gethsemane with his final words on the cross: "Take this cup/Your will be done" and "Why have you forsaken me?/Into your hands I commit my spirit." What a gigantic (too small of a word) sacrifice.

Pray I can communicate some element of that sacrifice in a deep way, and that the piece will make a lasting impression of the great love it represents.

In Christ alone,
Rich

Westchester Chapel

On Sundays my wife, Joyce, and I commute out of NYC to attend a small church in White Plains, NY, (WestchesterChapel.org). The pastor, Jim Warren, produced ads for Broadway and was the Creative Director at MTV before he was saved, and he loves to use all the arts in worship and evangelism. We've needed a larger space for some time now, and we've just come across a building that is double our current size. It happens to be double what we're paying in rent, but the Lord has shown us clearly that He will provide. I'm sure that in no time we'll double in size, but for our first year or so we need a bit of extra support.

If you'd like to invest in ministry through the arts in the NYC area, please consider supporting Westchester Chapel.

The MasterWorks Festival

We just had a fabulous time at the MasterWorks Festival, and you can follow our exploits in my June and July archives to my blog.

The artistic and spiritual seeds that were planted continue to grow as we've stayed in community through the internet: lifting each other up in prayer and encouragement. Last night we even had an online chat.

The Festival based their budget on some significant grants that they had expected year after year. The grants fell through, so they really had to scramble. They ended in the black barely, and now their doing the same thing in England. Please pray for them now, and if you can give to their mininstry, I'd be quite grateful: Support MasterWorks.

We're already looking forward to next year!

In Christ Alone,
Rich

Pray for Joyce's recovery

Please pray for Joyce as she recovers from surgery.

Pray for strength to return and for her to stay positive.

If you're not signed up for updates on her health you can do so and/or find out more at RichDrama.com/Joyce.

Mission Year

On my trip to Bolivia with Compassion I came across an organization called Mission Year (MissionYear.org). Oreon Trickey was one of the Compassion artists on the trip, and she's on staff with Mission Year.

In a nutshell, Mission Year is, as the name implies, a year of mission work in an inner city. Missionaries raise their own support, with a goal of $12,000 for the year. One of the goals is to live as simply as the poor they are serving, so they only have direct access to $60/month after rent.

I just had lunch with David Malcolm, who is the son of my parents' friends. He's spent his year volunteering (they can't receive an income) at a church and public school in Philadelphia's inner city. He was able to facilitate a Bible study at the school, where he saw God moving through David's efforts.

To contribute to Mission Year go to MissionYear.org. If you'd like you can designate David Malcolm or Oreon Trickey.

In the recording studio

I just laid down the vocal track for a DVD we're putting together to promote some trips to Israel in which I'll be performing biblical sketches where they took place. Watch for details as they unfold.

Adios

Lilli Ramirez blessed us with a Flamenco dance entitled "Adios" as MasterWits held our closing ceremonies. Lilli and her husband, Hector, are artists in residence at Belhaven College in Jackson, MS, but the former YWAMers have a vision to found a performing arts center in Madrid.

Peter Jennings is on the phone

...and CNN is on hold. The Green Grocer is planning on featuring our pears. Amazing what one article on the cover of the New York Times can do.

Dad's pear made front page of the New York Times

Last night my Dad was re-elected as president of Southern Oregon Sales, a pear packing house in my home-town of Medford, OR. This morning one of their pears was featured on page one of the New York Times. Those annoying stickers on fruit are being replaced by tattoos, burned into the outer layer of the skin by a laser: Tattooed Fruit Is on Way. Unfortunately the online article doesn't show the photo. For now, Dad's packing house is the only one set up to use this system for pears.

The unGong Show

Broadway level quality one night, complete craziness (and immense fun) the next.

We're in the country now

The Kavanaughs, who founded and direct the MasterWorks Festival, invited the faculty and families out to their home amid the Indiana corn fields. Their neighbors own shetland ponies. Kathryn Wilder, 11, poses with 2-month old Triple Time.

Oh WOW.

During worship tonight we opened with songs about dancing before the Lord, and the Dance dept. brought them to eloquent life. We prayed over the dancers since their performance is tomorrow night. That led into an enacted prayer in which a dancer led an audience member's spirit to dance. From there, hearts were opened up wide and some very deep requests were covered through enacted prayer. In other words, very real prayer requests were taken and members of the theatre department and some that were from other disciplines took the roles of those being prayed over. One actor plays the role of the Lord in each prayer. God moves in the tableau, and without words, brings his will to bear on the situation. Some of the requests were so deep we were all weeping, but refreshed and (Lord, hear our prayer) healed.

I'm spent.

In Christ alone,
Rich

The World's Greatest Romance

Last night Carol Jaudes, who was on B'way in CATS for five years, blessed the MasterWorks Festival and the Winona Lake community with her 1-woman play, The World's Greatest Romance. It told the stories of Susannah Wesley, Fanny Crosby, and Evangeline Booth. Carol brought her Broadway-level sense of excellence to the piece and moved us all.

We moved right into another hour and a half of continuous praise and prayer. This time there were several with deep needs that came to the surface. We prayed over them, and one girl even experienced a healing. I can hardly wait for the next worship experience!

Welcome Carol Jaudes & Patricia Mauceri!

Carol, who performed in CATS on B'way for five years, performed "You Know Me." Her intro was a reading from Psalm 139, which had been read by one of our students that morning in our worship service.

Patricia Mauceri has already been recognized on campus as Carlotta Vega from One Life to Live.

Good Bye Susie

We bid fare well to Susan Somerville Brown, who was an instructor for the first two weeks. We're striking a pose in honor of her work in CATS.

Now they're really going!

Thank you Lord for our liberty.

An early 4th

The concert tonight, if timed properly, will end with the 1812 Overture as the city's fireworks (moved to match the festival's orchestra schedule) errupt over Winona Lake.

Student Recital

Ben Crisman and Irene Kao just performed a delightful scene as Peter and Anne from the Diary of Anne Frank.

Improvisational worship

The MasterWits performed comedy improv tonight. We closed it out with enacted prayer and then went into improvisational worship. If they were a bag of popcorn, they wouldn't have been ready until five minutes to curfew. I don't think two seconds ever went by before someone would lead out with a song, prayer or scripture reading. We worshipped the Lord for over an hour and a half, and I think everyone was truly surprised when curfew came around. It's my prayer that this kind of full worship will continue when we meet tomorrow night.

Them's fightin' words

Bob Borwick was our latest master class instructor here at MasterWorks (MasterWorksFestival.org). He is the fight choreographer for Taproot Theatre in Seattle, so he taught us how to stay safe in fight scenes, how to fall without breaking something, and how to respect our fellow actors.

In this shot he's hanging out wth some of our students after a round-table discussion he did with Harvey Johnson, the director of our play, and myself. The topic was finding work in the theatre.

Faculty Recital

We just got back from a fabulous MasterWorks (MasterWorksFestival.org) faculty recital. Besides all the world-class musicians, Harvey and Susie did us proud. Harvey Johnson (director from Pittsburgh) portrayed the title role in a monologue from Othello. Susie Somerville Brown (B'way's CATS) closed out the evening with "Think of Me" from Phantom of the Opera.

Billy Sunday's Field

Billy Graham is preaching this evening in NYC, and I hope you'll pray for his ministry. This morning I just got to perform my short work, "The People Jesus Knew," in this tent, set up on the same field where Billy Sunday (and later, Billy Graham) preached in tent revivals. This morning it was for a group called Men Following Christ. These guys have a vision for this field to be filled with thousands the way it was when the Billies were preaching.

End of week one

We've just finished our first week of MasterWorks, and we're all pretty wiped out. Three wonderful weeks to go!!!

Jellical CATS

Susie Somerville Brown, one of our great theatre faculty here at MasterWorks is teaching our students dance steps from the Jellical Ball from CATS. She was in the closing company of the longest running musical in Broadway history.

Peter Parros

6/21/05 3:50 pm
Peter Parros, Dr. Ben Harris on As the World Turns, is doing his first of two Master Classes here at MasterWorks.

He opened by saying "Can anything good come from Nazarth? Can anything good come from soap operas?" He's showing our students that there can.

His testimony is very inspiring, and he laid out a paradigm for acting.

6/22/05 4:07 pm
Now he's working with our students on their monlogues: great stuff.

Compassion

Joyce and I sponsor two children through Compassion: Riquelmys in the Dominican Republic and Wendy Yoselin in Honduras:

The sponsorship process has been delightful! We know we're impacting their lives in a significant way by the letters, drawings and pictures we receive from them. And those letters, drawings and pictures (not to mention their prayers!) impact our lives as well.

I've travelled with Compassion to Bolivia and Honduras, so I've seen first hand that sponsorship money is being used wisely. In fact they made the The American Institute of Philanthropy's list of Top Rated Charities.

You can read my journal with pictures, and watch a video of my last trip:



I hope you'll choose to sponsor a child today. It will change the world for both of you: Sponsor a child Now!

Caught

I am glad to have been caught in the reckless raging fury that they call the love of God.
--Rich Mullens

Salvation is all about letting yourself get wrapped up in the love of God.

God created us so He could be in relationship with us (Genesis 1:26 and 27).

Unfortunately we blew it (Genesis 3).

To bring us back into releationship God sent his Son Jesus (or Yeshua in Hebrew): John 3:16.

Jesus lived a perfect life, so when he was crucified he became the perfect and final sacrificial Lamb. He took on our sin so that it would no longer keep us from God (II Corinthians 5:21).

All you have to do is trust Jesus (Yeshua) to do this for you (Romans 10:9-13).

You can do this right now! Have the kind of LIFE that's been bouncing me around the stage and around the world. Pray this prayer:

Dear Jesus (Yeshua),
Thank you for loving me. Forgive me of all my sins. Cover them for me. Become Lord of my life and help me to live for you.
Amen.

If you prayed that prayer you can have assurance that you will have life more abundant while living on the earth and life eternal in Heaven. There's no magic to the prayer that's here. It's about trusting Jesus (Yeshua) as lord of your life: trusting that He knows what's best for you because he created you. It's about trusting Him to cover you when you mess up.

I'd love to know if you prayed that prayer. Shoot me an email .

If you're not ready to pray that kind of prayer and really mean it, here are some more things to consider: Who Is Jesus and Knowing God.

Thomas Tornado Tinglehoop and the Three Christmas Clues

Thomas Tornado Tinglehoop and the Three Christmas Clues
Originally uploaded by RichDrama.

My brother got me into a Book Expo held at the Javitts Center here in New York. I was able to leave query letters with SEVEN publishers! It was like walking all around the country in a couple of hours.

Please pray that one of these all-new contacts will choose to publish it.

In the query letter I told them that there are comments about the book online, but at this point I only have one. I received numerous emails encouraging us about the book, but unfortunately my inbox was corrupted. Ach!

If you happened to have read the book and have something good to say about it, please go to RichDrama.com/Tinglehoop and click on "What others are saying..."

Thanks so much!

In Christ Alone,
Rich

Photos from Israel

Though Beth lost her sight at birth, her presence on the trip brought a greater awareness of the details of Israel to the rest of us. Here she is "seeing" a replica of a first century cross.

Other pictures from our trip are here.

There were a few from our trip to the Dead Sea that were taken at a low resolution, so they weren't allowed on that other site. Here they are.

Grammy Award-winning cousin

My brother, Bob (left), was in town for the Book Expo held at the Javitts center. He and his wife, Shannon, run Lightbourne, a small company that creates book and CD covers. Bob won a pretty major award for his cover of Reflections in the Ice.

Between Bob and I is our cousin, Nick Brophy. He was in town to engineer an album for the band, Radio Mundial. He won the Grammy for his work on the album, Tribute to Tradition.

Here we are with Bob's wife, Shannon, at LaGuardia Airport:


Nick's brother John was also in town, but it never worked for all of us to be in one place at one time. John designs backgrounds for video games.


Though the Brophy family never lived near us when we were growing up I think it's cool that we all turned out to be full time artists.

My playwriting mentor honored

Tina Howe, who was my playwriting professor at Hunter College has just received the Distinguished Achievement in American Theatre Award from the William Inge Theatre Festival.

Site Feed Updates

One way to know when my blog is updated is to subscribe with a Site Feed reader. Here are a few Blogger.com recommends:

Bloglines (web-based), and NetNewsWire and Shrook (Mac OS X). More are listed at AtomEnabled.org.

I've been fairly pleased with Bloglines. It updates every hour, so it's not as fast as receiving emails, but could be faster if you check your email only once or twice a day. It has a notifier you can download (Mac or Windows) that will tell you when the site's been updated. If you go with them, here's a link that will set it up for you:





Bloglines is free, as are most of them. A lot of sites are moving to site feed updates because all of our email boxes are getting so over-crowded!

We just got back from Joyce's ordination

Ordinand
Originally uploaded by RichDrama.

Joyce is now officially ordained as an elder in the Church of the Nazarene. She's holding a gift from Eastern Nazarene College, a sculpture by Scott Stearman, who once took us horse riding in the Colorado Rockies.

Itinerary Updates

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