David Templeton - Wreth Like Me - One Sinner Show
July 17, 18, 19, 24, 25, 26
The Glaser Center, 547 Mendocino Ave. Santa Rosa
A whole-lot-of-years in the making, Wretch Like Me is writer and actor David Templeton’s long-planned solo performance piece about his Southern California adolescence as a “raging” teenage fundamentalist Christian. Set during the tail-end of the 1970’s “Jesus Movement,” as the last vestiges of the Peace-and-Love Christianity were giving way to the conservative religion of the big-money Evangelical wave, Wretch Like Me is at once heartwarming, heartbreaking, and hilarious, giving rich insight into the power of non-denominational religion to heal and hurt, often in the same moment.
In Wretch Like Me, Templeton—a noted Bay Area theater and film journalist—finally tells his own story, beginning with his colorful but chaotic, roller-coaster childhood in Southern California during the 1960’s, moving on to his pre-adolescent Christian conversion in the early 1970’s and his unbelievable high-school years, when he grew his hair long, donned a pair of overalls and became a full-fledged ‘Jesus Freak’. The show, performed as a two-act monologue, includes stories of near-death by baptism, Holy Communion served with Jack Daniels and a marijuana brownie, shocking alternative tunes for ‘Amazing Grace,’ and a girl who wet her pants for Jesus. And it has a happy ending, when at the end of his faith’s unraveling rope, just in the nick of time, he is saved from being “saved.”
This special “advance-look” run will take place over six damnation-packed performances, presented as part of the Unitarian Universalist Congregation, Santa Rosa’s ongoing arts & culture ministry.
SHOWTIMES: July 17, 18, 19, 24, and 25 at 8:00 p.m., and July 26 at 2:00 p.m.
LOCATION: The Glaser Center, 547 Mendocino Ave. Santa Rosa
TICKETS: Suggested donation of $9 is requested; no one turned away for lack of funds
PURCHASE TICKETS: Copperfield’s Book Stores, The Last Record Store, Back Door Disc, and on-line at
PRESS CONTACT: Dan Zastrow; 415-509-5256
Labels: Live Theater
