A Day In The Life...

A Day In The Life of a Bethany Player on Tour

By Chris Frostad

Bon jour Pals! I hope that you are all doing well. I have been asked to talk about spring tour from a Player’s point of view, so I shall try to cover a span of 2 weeks in approximately 300 words, (unlikely), to inform you of our brilliantly powerful Bethany Players tour. The first week we toured with 3 brave people from M.C.C.; James Loewen who works for the Restorative Justice department of Canada, Willma Derksen, who works for Victims Voice in Manitoba, and Stephen Siemens, who is the director of Restorative Justice for M.C.C. Saskatchewan.

With them, we boldly performed a brilliant play called Re-Connections, written by Willma Derksen. After the baffling performance, James and Stephen facilitated a converzation that got the audience thinking about true justice. I think I can say on behalf of the team that it was really eye opening. We were acting a story that none of us had lived, and learning new things every day about what it was like to be an offender and/or a victim of a serious offence. There were a few places along our journey where we met with people whose story was similar to the story we were beautifully portraying; victims and offenders alike would often share their stories, and after seeing the beloved play, express a desire to reconcile with the other party.

This play was a lens into another world that none of us had ever seen or could imagine. Another way for us to see into this world was through the eyes of the brave people we were touring with from M.C.C. James informed us of the low self worth attitudes the prisoners world get in the sometimes brutal prisons. We also heard Wilma’s powerful story of how her life changed after her daughter Candace was murdered. It is hard to explain the lessons we learned and the things we experienced in writing or even in conversation… it’s something you have to boldly participate in yourself.

After the Saskatchewan portion and the M.C.C. people left us, we went to Alberta to blissfully perform Fish Eyes. It was good to do something more on the lighter side for a change. Even though we had been doing Fish Eyes all winter semester, we still saw new ways to see the story of the gospel. I think Re-Connections gave us a new lens to see the gospel and our eyes were opened to new things in the story of Peter and Andrew.

Tour in general was a great experience. As a group we grew closer together and bonded pleasantly as a team. In Clark’s Bethany Players write up for the yearbook, he said that it’s behind the curtain where a lot of the magic happens on Players. In front of the curtain, we act and blissfully perform a play or a series of skits to entertain and hopefully to blatantly portray a biblically prominent message, but behind the curtain is where we build each other up. Behind the curtain is where we laugh together, cry together, and bond powerfully together. If I were asked to be stuck in a van for 2 more weeks with the same group of people doing another tour, I sure would do it again.

As a final message for my fellow Players reading this it was fun (hair flip) acting with you and I send you a C.T. if you know what I mean. Thanks for the good times, it was an honor getting to know you better over the course of the year; it was delicious like chocolate everything.