"Tuesday's With Morrie"
Opens at Main Street Theater, Thursday Night

 

by: Bobby McDonald

 

 

Patrons at Main Street Theater were greeted with a great performance, on opening night of the first play of the 2012 Season, when "Tuesday's With Morrie" was presented. Thursday night was the first of six performances that are scheduled for this week, January 19-21st, and next week, January 26-28th. The touching and moving story of a weekly ritual between a young journalist  and his beloved college sociology professor, who is dying of Lou Gehrig's disease. Mitch Albom, played by Stan Shipp, "blocks" his schedule on Tuesday's, from a busy life, as a columnist for the Detroit Free Press, and visits his old professor from Brandeis University, after a sixteen year sabbatical from his college days, in hopes of learning some of life's lessons, that Morrie Schwartz, played by Rick Moser, can reveal to him.

Mitch learns a number of things from Morrie, including these classic, "life altering" sayings:

"Taking makes me feel like I'm dying.....giving is like you're living!"

"Once you learn how to die, you learn how to live!"

"A tree's leaves are the most beautiful just before the tree dies!"

 

 

 

"You closed your eyes. That was the difference. Sometimes you cannot believe what you see, you have to believe what you feel. And, if you are ever going to have other people trust you, you must feel that you can trust them too...even when you are in the dark. Even when you're falling!"

"As you grow old, you learn more. If you stayed at twenty-two, you'd always be as ignorant as you were at twenty-two. Aging is not just decay, you know. It's growth. It's more than the negative that you're going to die, its also the positive that you understand you're going to die, and that you live a better life because of it."

 

 

 

"So many people walk around with a meaningless life. They seem half-asleep, even when they're busy doing things they think are important. This is because they're chasing the wrong things. The way you get meaning into your life is to devote yourself to loving others, devote yourself to your community around you, and devote yourself to something that gives you purpose and meaning!"

"Love is the only rational act....without love we are like birds with a broken wing. Love is 'the point' of it all! No one exists alone...we must love one another or die!"

 

 

 

 

"Be the same person, everywhere you go!"

"Life is all about love, compassion, responsibility, and God!"

"I want you to come to my grave, after I'm gone, and have a picnic. Then, you talk and I'll listen!"

 

 

 

On being compared to God's servant Job. "I think God over did it, with Job!"

And, finally Mitch learns....."Morrie was a teacher to the last!"

 

 

 

The Main Street Theater production is directed by Sherrie Shadix and Betty Green. Stage Manager is David Woody, and Light and Sound Manager is Heather Fitch.

 

 

_____