Play at EMU explores peace, justice themes

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Ted & Company TheaterWorks and the Summer Peacebuilding Institute at Eastern Mennonite University will present “I’d Like to Buy an Enemy” 7:30 p.m. Friday, June 3, in the MainStage Theater of the University Commons at EMU.

The play, starring Ted Swartz and Tim Ruebke, allows audiences to laugh at themselves while raising important questions about the place of the U.S. in the world, confronting the fear that is such a large part of contemporary culture and exploring ways to honestly work for peace and justice in this country … and just maybe in the larger world!

Sketches include: “I’d Like to Buy an Enemy,” “Why Can’t I Get My Money Back?”, “The Reptilian Brain Speaks: We’re late! We’re late … are we late?” and “You Started it! – a treatise on the cycles of violence.”

Tim Ruebke will lead a discussion following the play.

Ted Swartz is a writer and actor who has been mucking around in the worlds of the sacred and profane for over 20 years. He is the creator or co-creator of over a dozen plays, including “FishEyes,” “Creation Chronicles,” “DoveTale,” “What Would Lloyd Do?” with Trent Wagler, “Tattered and Worn” and” Just Give ‘Em the News” with Jeff Raught, “I’d Like to Buy an Enemy,” “Excellent Trouble” with Ingrid de Sanctis, “Live at Jacob’s Ladder” and others. Ted is a theologian of a different sort.

Both theater and seminary trained, he has found a unique, and entertaining, discovery: at the intersection of humor and biblical story is often a greater understanding of the text. Or, at the very least, a different understanding.

Tim Ruebke is executive director of the Fairfield Center in Harrisonburg. Since 1992, he has extensive experience mediating and facilitating general community, family, workplace, group/multi-party, and criminal circumstances. He is certified by the Supreme Court of Virginia as a mentor mediator and trainer and has been an adjunct faculty member for James Madison University and EMU. He earned a BA degree in social work and an MA degree in conflict transformation from EMU.

Admission is $10 at the door. For more information, contact the SPI office at 540-432-4653.

For more information on Ted & Company, contact: agent@tedandcompany.com or call 540.421.1716.