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Published at 9:06am
Published on 5/14/08
Video
Rev. Susan Sparks
Baptist minister and stand-up comedian
(mabcnyc.org, susansparks.com)
I do a lot of humor in the pulpit, and I try to do what I call “conscious comedy” in my show—just to make people think. I’ve done Carolines and Stand-Up NY. I had an interesting show recently, with a stand-up rabbi and an Islamic comedian. I did the opener as the Christian chick. [It used to be that] in the clubs, people would find out I’m a minister and they’d just go, “Eww.” So in the beginning, I would not let them introduce me as a minister, because the audiences—you would lose them. Now, I’ve kind of come full circle and am talking about it up front, but doing it from a very raw and honest perspective, which is about the conflict and personal journey of being a minister and a real human being.
Rav Shmuel
Orthodox Jewish rabbi and singer-songwriter
(ravshmuel.com)
One of my students handed me a disc of Phish. I had never heard of them before, and I became hooked on the music. And then I went to a show and found that because I was dressed as an Orthodox rabbi, hundreds of Jews felt the need to say, “Shalom” or “Mazel tov” to let me know they were Jewish too—which I thought was really interesting. So I started this thing that was kind of like a loose band for Jewish Phish fans called Gefiltefish. We did that for a couple of summers and that exposed me to a lot of other music as well. The first night I went [to the Antihoot at the Sidewalk Café, in 2001], that was really music I’d never heard before—people writing about real life in a present, gritty way—and I was excited by that. It finalized what had been brewing for a long time. It gave me a forum and the confidence to get out there and sing and try things.
Some people say, “You’re just like Matisyahu,” which is fine. He’s a really nice guy; I’ve met him a few times. But our music is very different and we come from very different places. I’m in my forties, he’s in his twenties; I’ve been religious my whole life, and he came to it in his early twenties. I don’t mind the comparison, but I don’t really see it other than we both have beards. [Laughs]
George Drance
Jesuit priest, actor and artistic director ofMagis Theatre
(magistheatre.org)
I was once offered a role that would’ve taken place in Paris with a fairly influential director, but I found the script just terribly dehumanizing. It was cruelty for cruelty’s sake, and it was kind of gratuitous shock value. I just had to say, “I’m sorry, I can’t do this.” That being said, I also have done things that are probably a little controversial. Paula Vogel’s Hot ’N’ Throbbingat the American Repertory Theatre dealt with issues of domestic violence and pornography. Yet my religious superiors felt the play is really about a realistic look at these issues and trying to find the human experience within that, and they felt that it was a good thing that I was involved.
—As told to Billie Cohen
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