A biography of myself for my Theatre class

The bottom of it is just footnotes, but you can read them if you want. I left out a few paragraphs, the ones with all my education stuff that is so boring. It is kinda sad because the footnotes are longer than what I have posted. But oh well.



Jordan Victoria Ward was born on April 27, 1990, the youngest of Ken and Carolyn Wards 6 daughters. She has resided in Baton Rouge, Louisiana since birth. Jordan was raised in a religious family, primarily Baptist in her early years. She then moved on to the denomination of “non-denominational” and now is simply a follower of Jesus Christ - no denomination, no facade, and no hidden agenda.

Jordan has spent 88% of her lifetime fully emerged in theatre of a different sort with performances that most wouldn’t readily recognize as theatrical. If examined through the textbook* definition of theatre it would most undoubtedly be classified as a typical performance. The theatre that I am speaking of is the pseudo-Christian “church”.

Including her experience in modern church Jordan has seen countless live theatrical productions, 2 or more a week for approximately 15 years, averaging around 1,560. They should be considered professional considering that producing a sermon was the profession of the educated preacher/pastor. However, she has moved on from this sort of theatrical performance, seeing as it is un-biblical. Jordan is now walking out her Faith through relationships with fellow Christians in a House Church.+



* Pgs. 7-9 of The Essential Theatre states very specifically is classified as theatre, beginning with the audience. The text very explicitly says that you must have an audience to have a theatre, and what more is a congregation of “church-goers”, except a glorified audience? (Ex. “It may permit spectators [congregation members] to surround the performers [preachers], require the audience [congregation] to sit in rows, facing a platform on which the performance occurs.”) The second statement that backs this theory is that of the performance. A “worship-service”, and sermon preached in your modern day church is just as much a performance as a circus sideshow. It is pleasing to the people, as opposed to pleasing to God, which if I am not mistaken, is what Christianity is all about. (Ex. “ Such spectators [congregation members] may resent or avoid any production that questions conventional moral, political, or social values…They support what appeals to them and fail to support what they do not like or do not understand…In turn, Broadway producers [Mega-church leaders, modern church], who need to recover the large sums required to mount a play [sermon] on Broadway [the pulpit], often avoid controversial subject matter [holiness, sin, exc.] or unfamiliar staging conventions [ meeting in the house instead of buildings, the way they did it in the Acts of the Apostles in the Bible] so as to attract as many theatregoers [churchgoers] as possible. Off-Broadway and regional theatres [House-churches] with lower costs and ticket-prices [ no building, all funds to go feed the hungry, cloth the naked, support orphans and widows], can afford to take greater chances, and may seek a more restricted audience [ the spot-less Bride of Christ who has remained untainted by the world] than that wooed by Broadway [ The modern Church]. “)

+ House Church is a meeting in homes rather than buildings. There is no preacher, but rather each person brings evidence that they have been with God throughout the week. It is the body of Christ, where every joint supplies with a word, a psalm, spiritual teaching, or prophecy that is all done for the edification of the body of Christ. It is a small intimate setting, there is little room for “acting” like a Christian, rather people are actually Christians, living out the Word of God.