{"id":849,"date":"2022-04-06T08:27:02","date_gmt":"2022-04-06T14:27:02","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.mcm.edu\/herald\/?p=849"},"modified":"2022-04-22T12:21:26","modified_gmt":"2022-04-22T18:21:26","slug":"premiere-of-i-do-believe-in-ryan-little-theatre-a-student-written-play-about-faith-and-loss","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.mcm.edu\/herald\/2022\/04\/06\/premiere-of-i-do-believe-in-ryan-little-theatre-a-student-written-play-about-faith-and-loss\/","title":{"rendered":"Premiere of &#8220;I Do Believe&#8221; in Ryan Little Theatre: A Student-Written Play about Faith and Loss"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>Come see the first production of alumni Shawna Johnson\u2019s play <em>I Do Believe <\/em>tomorrow on April 7th! <em>I Do Believe<\/em>, a two-act play written as part of Johnson\u2019s Honors Opus project, is a story about the loss and revival of faith during difficult times. When Mia\u2019s best friend, Kayla, dies in a car crash, she struggles with her faith, questioning why God would allow such a thing to happen. When Kayla\u2019s brother, Logan, learns of Mia\u2019s struggles, he tries to help her work through her questions and supports her.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Why do some people turn to God and why do others turn away from him in times of suffering? This is the heart of Johnson\u2019s story. \u201cMost of us have experienced loss and have been confused about why bad things have to happen,\u201d Shawna Johnson says, \u201cI honestly just took my experience and beliefs and tried to express them as best I could.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The part of Mia will be played by freshman Theatre major Abby Ewing, and her brother Logan will be played by junior Theatre Education major Kelton Wehrman with Ashleigh Goff as the director. \u201cI feel so honored to have my play produced at McMurry,\u201d Johnson says, \u201cIt\u2019s one thing to put your ideas into words, but then to actually have it come to life through the actors is amazing to watch. \u2026I could not have asked for a better cast to make my words come to life.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cI\u2019ve never had a playwright present for any of my productions before,\u201d says Babak Akavan, a junior Theatre major, playing the role of Derek, one of Logan\u2019s friends. \u201cI wanted to be as respectful as possible [to Shawna\u2019s script]. It was really fun. I got to meet the playwright and we all became friends\u2026\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Dalton Martinez, a junior Theatre major, plays the role of Keith, another one of Logan\u2019s friends. \u201c&#8230;This is truly a great story,\u201d he says, \u201cand it\u2019s really relatable especially since we\u2019re in such a pretty strong Christian community here in Abilene. While this may not be inspired by a true story, this is based off true events that can happen to anyone within the Christian faith.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Shawna Johnson hopes audience members, \u201c&#8230;come out of it with a sense that it\u2019s okay to look for answers and ask questions\u2026 ultimately, it comes down to faith in God in good times and bad times, that he loves us, and he will always be there for us.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Show times this week are April 7th through the 10th at 7:30 pm at Ryan Little Theatre.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Come see the first production of alumni Shawna Johnson\u2019s play I Do Believe tomorrow on April 7th! I Do Believe, a two-act play written as part of Johnson\u2019s Honors Opus [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":11,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[12],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-849","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-issue-4-april-6-2022","clearfix"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.mcm.edu\/herald\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/849","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.mcm.edu\/herald\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.mcm.edu\/herald\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.mcm.edu\/herald\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/11"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.mcm.edu\/herald\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=849"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.mcm.edu\/herald\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/849\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":850,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.mcm.edu\/herald\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/849\/revisions\/850"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.mcm.edu\/herald\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=849"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.mcm.edu\/herald\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=849"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.mcm.edu\/herald\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=849"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}