Instructions for living in a broken world
From Mendocino College
The Mendocino College Theatre Arts Department will present “Mendocino Stories: Instructions for Living in a Broken World,” an original play based on stories of real people in our local community. The show will run for two weekends only March 13-23, in the Mendocino College Center Theatre on the Ukiah Campus.
Under the guidance of renowned playwright and solo performer Dan Hoyle, actor-educator Lucas Verbugghe and college theatre director Reid Edelman, students have utilized Hoyle’s exciting techniques of Journalistic Theatre. The result is an inspiring locally grown project reflecting the challenges and resilience of our community with honesty, empathy and humor.
This production will feature costumes and scenery highlighting the work of students in Mendocino College’s CTE program in technical theatre under the direction of faculty and staff members Steve Decker, Kathy Dingman-Katz and David Wolf. Stage management is by Sarah Jansen.
The talented cast features 16 actors, including many students and alumni of the Theatre Arts Department’s Conservatory Cohort ensemble. Many members of the ensemble were also involved in the script developme
This year, we’re going to learn the firsthand experiences of the Israelites who, because of their sin, found themselves passing through a place that God said was not their home. They went into an actual exile, meaning they were forced to leave the homes they had and start all over in a new country and under a new ruler. They would need to find new places to live and new ways to feed themselves. They were going to be dependent on others. In fact, their entire identity as a nation would be at risk. Exile would be new for God’s people, and God knew that.
So God sent a message through the prophet Jeremiah to all the people, the elders, the priests, the prophets, and everyone else, telling them how to exist while they were in exile. Those instructions are recorded in Jeremiah chapter 29, verses 5 through 9.
“This is what the Lord Almighty, the God of Israel, says to all those I carried into exile from Jerusalem to Babylon: ‘Build houses and settle down. Plant gardens and eat what they produce.
Marry and have sons and daughters; find wives for your sons and give your daughters in marriage, so that they too may have sons and daughters. Increase in number there. Perform not d
How to Live in a Broken World
Do not judge, so that you may not be judged. For with the judgment you make you will be judged, and the measure you give will be the measure you get. Why do you see the speck in your neighbor’s eye, but do not notice the log in your own eye? Or how can you say to your neighbor, “Let me take the speck out of your eye”, while the log is in your own eye? You hypocrite, first take the log out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to take the speck out of your neighbor’s eye.
Matthew 7:1-5
If Jesus had never been born and these words had never been spoken, imagine what life in this world would be like—hard, harsh, hypercritical, and judgmental. But Jesus did live, and he did speak these words, and they are meant to change everything about the way we live with others.
We were entertaining friends, and I picked up a pan of deep-dish lasagna on my way home. Since it was filled to the very brim, I carefully belted it in the back seat and started home driving very, very carefully. No driver is more loathed at rush hour than the one who drives very, very carefully. People honked, glared, and made unfriendly gestures. I kept thinking, “If only they
I published a segment of this post three years ago, but I have extended it and am sharing it again, because this message is on my heart.
Pollyana is one of my favorite old movies. A young girl comes to a stuffy, crabby town and transforms it with her cheerful outlook and her ability to see good where no one else can see it. She talks about how her preacher father looked through the Bible and found enough “glad texts” for every day of the year.
And now the U.S. Army is employing gladness as a preparation for soldiers before they go on tour of duty. The soldiers are taught to “hunt the good stuff.” Listen to this six-minute, intriguing interview on NPR entitled Classes Teach Soldiers to Be ‘Army Strong’.
Paul issues two commands:
Endure hardship with us like a good soldier of Christ Jesus. (2 Timothy 2:3 NIV)
and
Give thanks in all circumstances. (1 Thessalonians 5:18 NIV)
One way to study the Bible is to do addition. If we add these two verses together, what instruction do we end up with? I’m trying to absorb the idea that thanking God for the good in every circumstance equips a person to be able to endure hardship.
When I was young I r
Mendocino Stories: Instructions for Living in a Broken World
Co-directed by nationally acclaimed solo artist Dan Hoyle, Broadway and Hollywood actor Lucas Near-Verbrugghe and Mendocino College Theatre Director Reid Edelman, this culmination of a year-long project will be an original production based on a Mendocino County theme and utilizing the innovative “journalistic theatre” process developed by Dan Hoyle.
Event Dates and Times:
March 13-23, 2025.
PERFORMANCES:
Thursday March 13 • 7:30 PM • (pay what you wish preview)
Friday March 14 • 7:30 PM
Saturday March 15 • 7:30 PM
Thursday March 20 • 7:30 PM (special discount show, all tickets $10)
Friday March 21 • 7:30 PM
Saturday March 22 • 7:30 PM
Sunday March 23 • 2 PM (matinee performance)
Mendocino College Center Theatre Center for Visual & Performing Arts
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Maggie Ramey, John Melsness, Alicia Bales, and Esteban Orozco in the Mendocino College production of Mendocino Stories. (Photo by Scott Spears)
- Maggie Ramey, John Melsness, Alicia Bales, and Esteban Orozco in the Mendocino College production of Mendocino Stories. (Photo by Scott Spears)
- Maggie Ramey,