Evanston Performer in Hands Up! Faith

“My family was never religious per se, but my mom and dad were both raised in a church. Neither of them raised me nor my sister with religion, yet I found it," said Evanston's Jack Gehringer. He is one of 10 storytellers in Tellin' Tales Theatre presents: Hands Up! Faith which runs Virtually on Vimeo March 18-27. Tickets are $10 and can be purchased through the Tellin' Tales website www.tellintales.org.

Hands Up! Faith tackles the sometimes fiery disagreements around faith through personal stories by a diverse group of performers of different ages, experiences and sexual orientation. Each explore their identity as it relates to religion, relationships, and faith in these individual narratives. The players come from the city of Chicago, the suburbs and from a small Illinois town on the Mississippi River.

Jack Gehringer made his debut performance with Tellin' Tales Theatre as a middle school age apprentice in Six Stories Up in Pediatrics in 2003. He returned in 2006 starring as the evil side of George Bush’s conscience in Six Stories Up in the Ozone. Later, Jack got involved in other projects with Tellin’ Tales Theatre such as the Young Adult Writers Workshop and Reader’s Theater performances titled “Facebook” (2009), “Night” (2011) and “Are We There Yet?” (2012). Jack joined an experienced team of storytellers as a mentor in the 2018 production Six Stories Up in Climate Change.

“Hands Up presentations were developed by Tellin’ Tales Theatre in the last few years to provide adults from a diversity of backgrounds, with and without disabilities, a forum to explore controversial issues through writing, development, and performance of their personal stories,” explained Tellin’ Tales program director Stephen Donart. “Our goal is to reverse the lens through which controversial issues are too often viewed. By highlighting our core, shared humanity, we are better able to understand the beliefs, positions, and circumstances of those with whom we may not agree, or whom we view as ‘other.’

This year, Tellin' Tales Theatre is celebrating its 25th Anniversary. The mission of Tellin' Tales Theatre is to shatter barriers between the disabled and non-disabled worlds through the transformative power of sharing personal narratives. To see more information about Hands Up! Faith and to see the complete list of Tellin' Tales shows for 2022, visit www.tellintales.org.