About Jeff…

the mission…

“To cultivate and nurture the presence of God and His beauty in the world, through family, service and art.”

That’s the mission.

From my earliest days, there has been an sense of presence in my life that I have always identified clearly as God. I have always been moved by His presense and love in the world, and remain astonished that life as we know it exists. The wonder of being a free standing, free creative agent is both miraculous and normal, an overwhelming reality that must be ascribed to something, whether it be a notion of time plus chance plus nothing, or the notion of a personal God who is there and who is not silent. (To use the words of Francis Schaeffer.)

Beauty is a chief means by which God enters the world, and by beauty I mean a vast assortment of things. I am not a careful philosopher, though I’d like to be, and most readings in philosophical aesthetics leave me grasping for the edges of meaning, and when I’m done, I’m not sure I know more than I did when I started. But beauty is to be found throughout life, throughout the full experience of the birth to death journey, in all parts of the world, in all cultures, all relationships. I continue to believe that there is spiritual beauty and physical beauty, each pointing toward the other, in a kind of metaphoric symbiosis, each real in it’s own right, each embodying the truth about the other.

So beauty can be cultivated and nurtured in many ways, always with a hands-in-the-dirt approach, both in art and in relationships. As a follower of Jesus, and as an artist, this is what I am trying to learn to do, albeit in my broken and limping fashion.

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This headshot was taken in 1998. I’ve changed a bit. New headshots soon…I promise. But the words about my mission, written around the time of the headshot, still ring true for me. The paragraphs above have been posted on the old jberryman.com web site for years now, and when it came time to put up new material over here, I found that what I said then still holds. Here we are in 2007 and like I said, there has been a lot of change. I’m not acting as much as used to because I’m pouring my energy into the writing. My currently projects are: Hunting Grace is currently in the hands of an agent who is at least interested enough to read it. I’m working on a script for a new Willow Creek product, a training video for small groups that I hope will be surprisingly good from the standpoint of the drama components. And I’m working with the artists of the Northwest Church in Shoreline, Washington doing my best to help all of us connect with our work—and produce lots more of it. My wife Anjie is still lovely as ever, kinder than I deserve, and my greatest champion. My daughter Amy is wowing them in the College of Conservatory of Music at the University of Cincinnati in their Conservatory Acting Program. And my son Daniel continues to pursue Musical Theatre, and is doing pretty well, having recently received a callback for the National Thespian 2008 production of Hairspray. Abby–the dog–is getting older and a bit more cantakerous, but we love her anyway.

Here is a recent bio:

Jeff Berryman, a writer/actor from Seattle, Washington, has been touring his solo performance of Leaving Ruin for nearly a decade, performing throughout the United States, as well as in Canada and Germany. The play is based on Jeff’s published novel of the same name, and he hopes to finish rewrites on a second novel–Hunting Grace–soon. As a playwright, he continues work his Arthur cycle: Arthur: The Begetting, and Arthur: The Hunt, the first two plays in the projected seven-play project, have both been professionally produced in Seattle, and in 2005, Arthur: The Begetting was featured as part of the Jean Cocteau Theatre’s New Classics Series in New York. His other plays include The Catacombs of Texas, The Carrolls of Queen Anne, The Crèche Collector, The Question of Bethlehem, When Comes the Way, Postmodern Art, and The Little Guy. Favorite acting roles include C.S. Lewis in Shadowlands, Robert Falcon Scott in Terra Nova, and Jerry Mears in God’s Man in Texas. He is an associate member of the Dramatist’s Guild, a visiting professor at Abilene Christian University, and received his MFA in directing from the University of Texas at Austin.