CYT Blog

The screening of Furious Love, a new documentary by Christian filmmaker Darren Wilson, will be held at the CYT Chicago warehouse tomorrow night.

Lindsey Branson, Marketing Director for CYT Chicago, said, “[Furious Love is] a very powerful story of God’s love showing up in the darkest places. Those that have seen it feel very touched and moved. If you want to be encouraged and blessed- come out to see it!”

The Daily Herald, a newspaper in Chicago, ran article this week about the documentary’s filmmaker Darren Wilson. According to the article:

“‘[Wilson] and his crew visited 14 countries and often were shocked by the depths of evil they encountered. Wilson has described the making of ‘Furious Love’ as the hardest spiritual journey he’s ever gone through…. Pastors and others who previewed the movie, which takes viewers from a sex trade district in Thailand to a ‘demon tent’ in Tanzania to occult hot spots near and far, were already saying the film was life-changing.”

“Furious Love” will be shown at 7 p.m. Saturday, March 13, at the CYT Chicago warehouse, 755 Industrial Drive, Cary. The public is welcome to attend either showing, and tickets for both are $5 at the door. Wilson said the film may not be appropriate for children under 12.

Find a local screening of Furious Love at their website.
Read about the filmmaker, Darren Wilson, in the Daily Herald article, here.

Karen Kingsbury, USA Today and New York Times bestselling author, updated her website today, giving her readers a heads-up as to where the money she raises from the online ‘Forever in Fiction package’ will go- us! Christian Youth Theater would like to thank Karen for being so generous.

Below is an excerpt from her website:

Many of you have asked about participating in the chance to win a Forever in Fiction package, a charity auction item I created to help various groups raise money. This package allows you to name yourself or someone else as a character in one of my upcoming books.

Quite often there might not be an auction in your area with a Forever in Fiction item available. For that reason starting now each year I will make one Forever in Fiction package available through an online auction. This year all money brought in will go to Christian Youth Theater, the real-life kids drama group that inspired the theater group in my Baxter series.

Let me explain a little bit about Forever in Fiction. The minimum bid for this item is $1,000. The reason the item has such a high minimum bid is because I hope to help raise as much money as possible for charities, with the limited number of character names available in my upcoming books. I hope you understand. Some people have felt so strongly about winning Forever in Fiction that they have combined funds with their extended family, church groups, work groups, or communities to successfully win a bid and name a specific person Forever in Fiction.

Recently, a teenage girl died in a tragic car accident. Her Christian high school family pulled together and raised $10,000 to win Forever in Fiction and place her name in one of my upcoming books. The $10,000, of course, went entirely to this young woman’s Christian School – which was the charity involved in that auction. With my current online Forever in Fiction, all money will go to Christian Youth Theater.

I hope that gives you better understanding and some ideas of how you can participate in Forever in Fiction.

Blessings to you and yours,
In His light,
Karen Kingsbury

USA Today and New York Times bestselling author Karen Kingsbury is America’s #1 inspirational novelist. There are more than 15 million copies of her award-winning books in print, including several million copies sold in the past year. Karen has written more than 40 novels, ten of which have hit #1 on national lists.

The Tennessean Newspaper mentioned CYT Alum, Michael Oakley, in a recent article that focuses on Spring Hill, Tennessee’s emerging theater scene. Oakley is directing Tom Sawyer with Old School Theater. He moved to Spring Hill from San Diego a year ago.

“People would rather stay in Spring Hill and have cultural events here than drive up to Nashville, especially for children’s events,” [local playwright] Collins said. “There certainly is a growing energy here.”

The Tennessean on Oakley:

“It was that sense of community and family that made Oakley comfortable in his move from San Diego. He is the worship arts pastor at Grace Park Church and said he came out of his shell as a child through Christian Youth Theatre. He said he sees Spring Hill as an ideal place to start something like that here.”

“This is such a young community of young parents and kids and young married couples,” [Oakley] said. “It’s all about considering the audience.”

Read the full article and check out Old School Theater’s website, here.

Chris Ninness contributed to the CYT Blog a couple weeks ago- urging CYT SD to help develop a commercial with Walmart Stores, in hopes that it would be hand-picked to be viewed on air during American Idol! Well, because of your help, the video is FINALLY here.

You can watch the video at the Mofilm website. The commercial, “Live Better Musical” was co-directed by Chris Ninness and David Gaetke.

Chris Ninness stressed that no community voting would be available for the competition, “It will be judged by a panel of Walmart executives…. Please pray and keep your fingers crossed.” He also spoke of everyone’s hard work amongst the video’s huge collaborative effort:

“The best way to help a project reach it’s full potential is to surround it with the best talent you can. The key was to find a great cinematographer, a great group of dancers, and an amazing song writer. When all the elements came together it was like magic. The enormous amount of effort put into it was why it has gotten such great feedback,” said Ninness.

CYT Chicago’s Rockford Director Ellen Mahan was interviewed by rrstar.com this week, for their “Get to Know Me?” section. Here is part of their Q & A session:

What inspires you to do what you do?
My love for the arts, and my love for teaching children.

What is up next for you that readers should know about?
I am directing the musical Narnia. After the run I plan on taking off six months to write a musical. I also want to go back to school.

What do you do for fun?
I love going to the movies, singing with my family and researching words. I am a bit of a word geek. Some of my favorite books are the dictionary, The Synonym Finder and the thesaurus.

Your motto in life:
Whatever you lay your hand to do, do it with all your might or go home.

What do you like best about your job?
As a teacher, it is such a high for me when one of my students has a light bulb moment. As a director, I love that I get the chance to be a small part of taking a not so popular student, an underdog, and watch them become a top dog.

What is something people are surprised to learn about you?
I love the old Horror movies — Dracula, Wolfman, Frankenstein with Bella Lugosi, Lon Chaney. You know, the old ones.

If you could take two weeks off from all your responsibilities, where would you go and what would you do?
The first week, I would spend on a beach somewhere so I could surf, walk, and do absolutely nothing. The second week, I would take my theater geek children to New York and see as many Broadway shows as we could.

Read the rest of Ellen’s interview.