The Next Production of Our Play, I'm Proud of You, and a Friend in a Starring Role

I’m delighted to announce that our play, I’m Proud of You, will be produced for the fourth time beginning March 22 at the Open Stage theatre in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. In Harrisburg, playing the role of television’s Fred Rogers, will be my close friend Michael David Gingerich. It is an inspired casting decision with great personal meaning. 

I met Michael and Tom Kaden more than a decade ago, when they reached out to me after reading my book, I’m Proud of You: My Friendship With Fred Rogers. I learned then that Tom and Michael were United Methodist ministers who had decided to step away from traditional church work to create a non-profit called Someone To Tell It To.

“Our vision is a world in which everyone matters, everyone is heard, and loneliness is diminished,” their website reads. “Someone To Tell It To is a non-profit organization that is working to create better relationships, people, and workplaces through the transformative power of listening.” 

 To them, my book and Fred Rogers’ historic life and message were directly on point. I met Fred in 1995 when interviewing him for a newspaper assignment about the effect of television violence on children. For reasons that still mystify me, from that time until his death in 2003, Fred was one of my closest friends. With his otherworldly kindness, compassion, love and nonjudgment, he mentored me through a very dark time of depression and self-doubt. 

As my book and now the play illustrate, one of Fred’s superpowers was an ability—an insistence—on being wholly present to anyone he encountered in life, whether it was a person like me, one of his famous friends, or the guy handing out towels at his health club. He listened to every person without an agenda or personal preoccupation. In that vein, I’ll never forget Fred’s question to me during our first conversation.

“Tim, do you know what the most important thing in my life is, right now?” 

I said that I had no clue, given that we had just met. 

“Speaking with Mr. Tim Madigan on the telephone.” 

Tom, Michael and I bonded immediately around Fred’s message. They remain among my closest friends. We make it a point to talk a couple of times a year, conversations that are always full of deep meaning and vulnerability, not to mention hefty doses of ribald humor. It has been a privilege to observe and support them as they went about what I had thought initially to be a quixotic quest of listening to anyone around the world who needed to be heard.

That’s still a big part of what they do. But today Someone To Tell It To, based in Harrisburg, employs a growing staff that also facilitates intentional listening everywhere from hospitals to corporate board rooms. Michael and Tom and Someone To Tell It To have been recognized nationally for their work. My two friends have written several books. 

It was only fitting that Tom and Michael would come to Fort Worth in the fall of 2023 for the world premiere of I’m Proud of You at Circle Theatre. I had collaborated on the writing of the play, based on my book, with another good friend, TCU theatre eminence Harry B. Parker. After Tom, Michael and I saw the play together and left the theatre, the three of us had not walked two blocks before Tom said he wanted to attempt to bring the production to Harrisburg. He also thought that Michael should audition for the role of Fred.

No person on the planet is more suited by heart and temperament to play that role, but I was still somewhat flabbergasted when Michael told me recently that he had indeed landed the part in the Open Stage production. Until then I had no idea that, in addition to his pastoral calling, he was an accomplished actor with a long list of stage credits. Michael had crushed his audition. 

Just before Christmas, the three of us discussed our friendship and this remarkable chain of events while recording the latest episode of their Somone To Tell It To podcast. (Listen at this link, https://bit.ly/42kOlCK.) The conversation is a window into a variety of male friendship quite different than what seems currently in vogue. The podcast also summarizes what I believe is most important in the world.

Late in our conversation, Tom asked me why, more than twenty years after his death, that Fred’s message continues to resonate.

“Because it’s true,” I said. “I continue to believe that the reality he was speaking of; the reality he was teaching us; the reality that he was underscoring by the way he lived his life, is what's most true about human beings. Love and compassion and non-judgment and kindness are the essential ingredients to life. Who knows how Fred would react to recent events, but kindness, vulnerability, compassion are still the way. And I think that’s one of the reasons people like the book, and why people have responded to the play. I think people are really happy to be reminded of that.”

“I would echo that, absolutely,” Michael said. “They are eternal truths. All those qualities, those characteristics, those gifts that you just mentioned, that's what will save us. That's what will elevate us. Those are the things that give meaning and depth to our lives.”

The high point of the podcast came at the very end, when Tom asked Michael to recite a soliloquy from the play, the scene on which I’m Proud of You turns. Desperate for affirmation, deep in the throes of his suffering, haunted by a complicated relationship with his father, Tim has written Fred a letter to ask this question: Would you be proud of me? The soliloquy is Michael’s interpretation of Fred’s remarkable response. (Listen at this link. https://bit.ly/40nuqQT.) 

As I told Michael that day, it was like hearing those healing words for the first time.

I’ll be in Harrisburg on March 28 for the second weekend of the production. It will be a sacred reunion for the three of us, and a deeply meaningful time for those who choose to join us for the play. Please do.
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For tickets at Open Stage. https://ci.ovationtix.com/36407/production/1207369 

For more information about Someone To Tell It To: www.someonetotellitto.org

With Tom Kaden, left, and Michael Gingerich after a Fort Worth production of I'm Proud of You in 2023.