Performances and workshops in almost 40 nations, about 30 films... Invite the Swingles to inspire your audience! Mobile users, our index is on the line below...
WOW! WOW! WOW!!!!! We almost got to see this at the International Christian Film Festival, but technical issues and time constraints collaborated to keep us from it. The director, was kind enough to give us a screener. It's absolutely brilliant!
It's shot in glorious Southern Oregon where we filmed A Matter of Perspective, and where I grew up. They worked on a micro-budget with actors from church, but David played their limitations like an instrument! The way they tackled complex challenges is simply genius! I think it has the excellence and camp that could make it a Christian Princess Bride.
Joyce said, "We loved it! We super super loved it!"
We had such a wonderful week with these amazing people at the Rocky Mountain Christian Filmmakers Camp! We completed the short film "Milk and Oranges" based on a true story told by Nathan Ashton, who shares seven film credits with me. This marked Joyce's directorial debut: We also provided headshots to all the actors, and I coached each of them for an audition to a live feature film. Woo hoo!
• Represented Hudson Michael Hill for Best Lead Actor in a Short Film for Mission Underground, for which I was a consultant
• Represented the Hill family for "Father Daughter Dance," which was nominated for Best Animated Film
• Represented the Hill family for "Father Daughter Dance," which was nominated for Best Student Film
I got to go up three times, so if you forgot which ones, don't look them up so you can enjoy the suspense! The third time, they cut what I said after the director.
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.
Trevor has been having adventures up north, and on Sunday you'll hear an amazing story about a translation of the Beatitudes and how they can bring life to our lives.
Joyce teaches on the Book of Ruth, which is read every year at the Feast of Weeks, celebrated by the Church as Pentecost, which falls today. She referenced Ezekiel 1:1-28, 3:12.
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.
We'll be baring our souls and sharing how the Lord met us in our lowest valleys.
Among the cast I have four friends involved:
Daniel Knudsen, Joyce Swingle,
Kristina Kaylen, Patricia Mauceri
and me at the NYC premiere
of Courageous Love.
Patricia Mauceri (Courageous Love, The Farmer and the Belle, One Life to Live) and I have worked together for more than a decade. She has worked alongside James Earl Jones, Christopher Plummer, Richard Dreyfus, Johnny Depp and many, many more.
Joyce and me with Jim Chandler
and his wife Jenn Gotzon.
Jenn and I are each holding
our Best Lead in a Short
Film awards at the International
Christian Film Festival.
Donna East at Comedy Strip Live,
where she's hosted several events.
My friend of two decades, Donna East, will be opening the show. She is a comedienne who has performed around the world with the USO.
I've been blown away during the rehearsals to hear surprising, shocking, healing, encouraging things from friends I've known, in some cases, for decades! I'm so blessed by these folks!!!
The director and producer is Jordan Scott Gilbert. I met Jordan a couple of years ago through Mastermedia. He is the first recipient of Broadway Global's Producer of the Year Award.
Watch my Schedule if you'd like to be sure to see me in a performance, and save the service fees by using the code RSwingle when you buy your tickets at the door: Actors Temple Theatre, 330 West 47th Street (between 8th and 9th Avenue). You can also buy tickets in advance at St. Luke's Theatre Box Office, 46th St., between 8th and 9th Avenues, New York, NY 10036. Be sure to check box office hours. For Group Sales click here, and use the code when you pay by check.
We are now offering 20% OFF of all ticket sales exclusively through www.TelechargeOffers.com with the code CELEB01(enter it in the box at the top - left hand side of the page). To go directly to this offer, you can also click here.
Friends, the producer has kindly set up a system whereby the actors can earn a commission from your tickets. After you purchase your tickets using CELEB01 I'd be SO grateful if you would send a personal email to info@oceanbayentertainment.com before that performance begins with the subject: CELEB01, and in the body of the email: your first/last name, # of tickets, final sale price, show date, and RSwingle, as illustrated below:
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Rich performed a sketch on today’s passage when he, Joyce and Elizabeth J. were in Romania during the 2012 Olympics...
Rachel Taylor teaches on Matthew 24:36-44 and Genesis 6. Dr. Linda Warren prays over the message and over Joyce and my trip to Orlando for the International Christian Film Festival where both films are up for Best Short Film, Best Director and Best Lead Actor. One Day is also nominated for Best Screenplay. Dr. Linda also shares announcements.
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.
Joyce and I with Cindy on a recent
visit she took to NYC.
Since about 1994 I've been performing in public schools through the invitation of Cindy Sebring.
That year I drove (back when I tried to keep a car in NYC) down to the DC area for a Christians in Theatre Arts conference. I remember the rain was also driving, and my windshield wipers weren't staying up with the volume. I ended up getting there in the middle of a performance by Frank Runyon, the third one-man play I'd seen, after Curt Cloninger and Roger Nelson. A gentleman in the back of the auditorium welcomed me, and after the performance we struck up a conversation. He knew some folks at the Lamb's Church of the Nazarene where I was an intern at the time. He asked me where I was staying, and I told him I hadn't figured that out yet. I didn't tell him, but I was hoping someone would give me a place to stay so I wouldn't have to spend a significant percentage of my savings on a hotel! He invited me to stay with his family, and to join them on Sunday at their church.
That Sunday I met Cindy. Soon I was invited to perform at a retreat that church was hosting. Cindy offered to drive me to the retreat from DC.
Soon after the retreat started Friday evening I told the pastor who would be preaching Sunday morning that I'd be happy to write a fresh piece to go with his sermon, but he didn't know what passage he'd be using. At about 10pm Saturday night he said he'd be preaching on John:15:1-17, about the Vine and the Branches. I stayed up until about 3am writing (and rehearsing) The Legend of Billy Branch, which came with some musical interludes. I discovered the next morning that Cindy's room was next to mine and she heard me singing as I rehearsed the piece!
I'm pretty sure it was on that trip, despite her loss of sleep, that Cindy invited me to perform and teach workshops at her public high school for the first time. In those 23 years she only invited me if her classes were well-behaved, but there weren't many years I missed.
I just returned from my final performance for her students. She is retiring in a couple of months. It was a very special trip, because these opportunities have been priceless.
The other two classes had just read Fahrenheit 451, a novel about censorship. The title is the temperature at which paper burns. The main character is a fireman, meaning he sets fire to books. I told them some of the discoveries we've made visiting Cuba, China, Russia, and two borders of North Korea.
The first of those two classes did a sociodrama based on a student who was told by his parents that if he didn't cut his hair he would not be allowed to cut his hair until after he graduated from high school in a couple of years. Afterward I drew from another story they'd read: Death of a Salesman. I pointed out that Willy Loman drew his identity in part from his son, Biff. Tim Keller uses this as an illustration in a sermon on the Breastplate of Righteousness. Then I pointed out that parents who, regardless of motives, have the right to raise their children in the ways they think best, but dictators controlling what their people are able to read and say is a very different thing.
The last class also brought up a parental scenario, but I brought up the difference between parents and dictators right up front. The students ended up exploring a world in which it was no longer legal for us to speak to people outside of our nation. The main character was on the phone with a friend in Russia. The police knocked on her door and told her they discovered that she was on an international call. She hid her phone, but the police did a sweep of her home and discovered a computer, which the enactors decided in the moment was also illegal. She complained that she had purchased the computer when it was legal to have one. One of the officers told her she should have thrown it out the window when the law was passed. (I pointed out that this was an SAT word posted in the halls of their school: "defenestrate.") In the end the young woman was able to escape with her hidden phone. I asked them if Fahrenheit 451 felt more real after living through a similar scenario. There was an overwhelming agreement that the sociodrama had helped make it more real.
I hope there will be other opportunities to share my plays and workshops in public schools, so if you know of a teacher who might be open send him or her to www.RichDrama.com.
A Clear Leading, one of the plays I've shared at Cindy's school, tells the story of Quaker abolitionist John Woolman, who spoke against slavery a century before our Civil War.
Joyce teaches on John 20:1-18, and she shares one of her funniest stories from her corporate career! Pastor Jim Warren opens the service with "Happy Resurrection Day" in the numerous languages of our congregation, and Pastor Linda Warren prays over the children and the sermon.
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.
We opened with Don Francisco's "He's Alive!" This rendition begins with Don talking about his process of writing the song...
Linda with Joyce and I just
before the turn of the century.
Tonight Dr. Linda Warren taught on Matthew 27 and Psalm 22:1-11, and as an analogy she shared how she came to the Lord. I was sobbing and sobbing, because she's the one who led Joyce to the Lord when they worked together at Sports Illustrated.
The opening is by Pastor Jim Warren. Readings from Matthew 27 by Pastor Linda, Elizabeth J., myself, and John C.
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.
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.
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.
Here's the trailer for The Case for Christ, preceded by an introduction by Lee Strobel and followed by an interview with him.
Thisis my new favorite movie, and that's only changed twice since 1981: Chariots of Fire and Risenare the only ones to have held that place in my heart since junior high.
The Case for Christ tells the true story of how Lee Strobel, a hard-boiled, award-winning investigative journalist for the Chicago Tribune set his skills on debunking the resurrection of Jesus Christ to convince his wife to abandon her newfound love for the Lord.
Acting, writing (Brian Bird: Captive, Touched by an Angel), cinematography (Brian Shanley: God's Not Dead, Do You Believe?) are all top shelf. Nothing cheesy about this one, and major papers are agreeing with that. The worst The Hollywood Reporter could do was imply that the film stereotyped Lee Strobel as an atheist by showing him 'constantly acting like a jerk, including drinking heavily, accidentally terrifying his little girl, and whining to Leslie (his wife), "You’re cheating on me with Jesus!"' Maybe the reviewer missed the fact that this is a biography based on Lee's life.
My wife, Joyce, who was going to journalism school in Chicago when Lee Strobel was writing at the Chicago Tribune, said it was more accurate to say that those actions stereotyped Chicago journalists of the time. She said you had to be tough to make it.
The reviewer goes on to say that Leslie, 'on the other hand, displays infinite love and patience with her husband, proving that — as was also shown in the faith-based film War Room — Jesus makes an ideal marriage counselor.' I know the validity of Erika Christensen's portrayal of Leslie, because part of my own bride Joyce's testimony is that one of her co-workers said, about a year after Joyce gave her life to the Lord, that Joyce's changed life was the first miracle the woman had ever seen.
Also, the reviewer is leaving out the fact that both lead actors are much more nuanced than his review implies. Lee is very caring and loving at times, especially as a father, and it's clear that his investigation into the resurrection of Jesus Christ is an attempt to save what he perceives to be a crumbling marriage. He is deeply moved when he discovers something he didn't know about his father, played by Robert Forster. On the other side, Leslie certainly expresses the pain Lee is causing her through his attacks on Christianity, she breaks down crying over her fear of losing her marriage, she raises her voice in numerous scenes, and at one point kicks Lee out for the night.
Forster's single scene was like an espresso: short but with a lot of punch. Another gem of a cameo was Faye Dunaway, playing another skeptic, but one who reluctantly directs Lee toward Truth.
One of the charming elements of the film is the detailing of the 80s: He drives a Trans Am with his massive mop flopping over his wide collars. He and his wife have worked out code for his pager. Bill Hybel's church (Willow Creek) sings a Keith Green song. A fast call back to the editor is from a creatively marked pay phone. He pops open a flip top soda can. (I whispered to Joyce: "Hope that didn't take too many takes!") And my favorite: "How many licks does it take to get to the center of a Tootsie-Pop? The world may never know."
At the end of the day that's how Lee Strobel's atheist friend, aptly played by Brett Rice, puts it to him. We'll never know everything. It takes faith to believe or not to believe. If you're leaning toward disbelief I challenge you to see this film without presuppositions. If you still have questions read the book of the same title upon which the film is based. I have more ideas about faith at www.RichDrama.com/MyPassion.
I believe The Case for Christ is pure Truth in its best package yet.
We watched it in a packed house on Times Square, where it received robust applause. The showing after ours was sold out.
It's rated PG for images of the crucifixion, some smoking, drinking and a hospital scene of an injured gang member. At one point a character whispers, "Oh, G_d," and it's unclear whether it's a prayer.
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.
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