Hi folks - I’m kicking off a blog to share some thoughts throughout my time as Artist in Residence at Grace DC. I hope this is the beginning of a dialogue (no actor monologues here!) for all of us to share how the arts play a role in our lives. If you’ve found this blog by other means than Grace DC, you are more than welcome to join in. The more the merrier!
If you haven’t heard already, Pastor Andrew and the church leadership have asked me to be the Artist in Residence at Grace DC, and I was amazed by this offer. In my experience, the Church at large and the arts are often at odds, and the two rarely celebrate each other, much less learn from one another. So it’s personally touching to get involved with Grace DC in this way. I spoke recently during a service about the importance of storytelling. I wanted to unpack more of those thoughts, as well as hear your own thoughts on “story.”
The first thing we know about God is that he is an artist. A creator. “In the beginning God created…” The primacy of this aspect of God is powerful for me as an artist because I think what it means to be made in his image is that we are made as creative beings, and we are called to use our creativity in our relationships, our vocation, our work places, and just for fun! Creativity not only makes life beautiful, it gives life meaning.
Furthermore, God reveals himself to us through the arts – through storytelling. The ability to tell stories, particularly ones that aren’t real – and yet learn from them, even be emotionally moved by them, is an incredible (and unique) feature of humanity. In fact, it’s a primal feature of humanity – we make sense of our world through storytelling. It’s no surprise then that Jesus was a storyteller. What are parables but tiny pieces of theatre?! They have dialogue, characters, plot, a clear beginning, middle, and end. All the essentials of good drama. My career as a theatre artist is being a professional storyteller – so to understand the significance of storytelling is to understand the channel by which God speaks to us. He reveals himself in narrative because it’s foundational to who we are - “In the beginning” is the same 5 syllables as “Once Upon a Time.” Or as many parables began, “There once was a man…” Storytelling is essential to our humanity.
Many theatre artists I know, when speaking about our profession, will comment “well, I’m not saving lives…” comparing their career to a doctor or other healthcare worker. Yet throughout the year, how many times do you see a doctor? Your dentist? Compare that to how many times you engage with the arts. Whether it’s listening to music, a podcast, watching a show, reading a book, taking in a museum or catching a live performance, I’d venture to say most of us don’t go a single day without the arts playing a vital role in our lives. The pandemic has only heightened our need for many professions in our society: we need doctors and medical scientists to keep us safe; we need teachers and educators to keep our kids thriving, and we need the arts to keep us human. The 2014 sci-fi novel Station Eleven by Emily St John Mandel features a troupe of travelling actors and musicians in an imagined apocalypse where a pandemic has altered humanity. The traveling artists’ motto, taken from a Star Trek episode, is “because survival is insufficient.” As we isolated in the early days of the pandemic, and as we are forced back into quarantine during covid exposures now, we turn to the arts to keep hold of our mental and emotional health. Storytelling matters because we are created to respond to stories. We need stories “because survival is insufficient.”
What art have you turned to during the pandemic to keep you sane? What recent story has impacted you in a meaningful way or made you feel more deeply?