“Born Again Yesterday” by Justin McKean will be presented at 7 p.m. Sunday, November 22nd, 2009, at at the Nightingale Theater, 1416 E. Fourth St., Tulsa. Tickets are $10. For reservations, call (918) 633-8666 for reservations or go to www.nightingaletheater.com.
Justin McKean’s “Born Again Yesterday” guides the audience through a hilarious maze of experiences drawn from the author’s life as a strict fundamentalist. “Everything in the play is based on something I did, or saw or heard,” McKean says.
Laughing at himself through this two-hour comedy, McKean hopes to build bridges. “The point of the play is to humanize, not demonize,” he says in a news release. “Christians who see it understand this quickly. They laugh more loudly than the non-religious people. I think this is because they know the people in the play very, very well. They’ve been to church with them. They have had potluck dinners with them. They went to church camp with them. You can love your family and still roll your eyes at them sometimes.”
Most of the play is comedy, but there are moments of sadness. “I’ve made people cry,” McKean says. “The show is based on a true story, and when I found that I’d lost my ability to believe the same things I did as a child, it truly devastated me.” These teary moments have a lighter side, too. “I’m a happy guy. I don’t take things too seriously, so there’s always a joke in there. In the saddest moments of life, you have to laugh through the tears.”
The story ends on a note of joy and hope with a plea to the audience to work together in their community locally and globally.
