Paul for Pete- Voting, Pete Buttigieg, Faith, and getting politically active.-04

EPISODE SUMMARY 

This week's episode is a conversation with Paul Barnes who volunteered on Pete Buttigieg's 2020 presidential campaign.  Paul wrote a fantastic book called "Paul for Pete". This conversation is inspiring and encouraging, and is intended to be an encouragement to get out to vote! 

Conversation on (00:00)

Show Notes:

Paul Barnes is an award-winning freelance theatre director, who has worked at most of America's leading regional theatre companies, Shakespeare festivals, and university training programs. 

 

Paul was born and grew up on the east coast (Wilton, Connecticut), but moved to the San Francisco Bay Area when he was going into the 8th grade. He graduated from Cubberley Senior High School in Palo Alto and majored in theatre in college, completing his degree and earning his California State Teaching Credential, at Cal State Fullerton. 

 

Paul taught high school English and theatre at Lincoln High in Stockton, California, but left secondary teaching for romance and life in the theatre, and was Education Director at the Ashland, Oregon Shakespeare Festival, and Conservatory Director/Associate Artistic Direct at PCPA Theaterfest in Santa Maria, California in the 70s, 80s, and 90s. 

 

Paul founded two theatres: the Oregon Cabaret Theatre, here in my hometown, Ashland, Oregon, and the Great River Shakespeare Festival in Winona, Minnesota. 

 

In 2019 Paul became involved in Pete Buttigieg's campaign for the 2020 Democratic Party presidential nomination, first as a contributor, then as a successful grassroots fundraiser, and finally as a member of Pee's Arts Policy Advisory Committee. When Pete suspended his campaign in March 2020, Paul made a lateral transfer to Joe Biden's Arts Policy Advisory Committee, helping to shape arts policy for the Biden campaign.

 

Becoming actively involved in Pete's campaign was an inspiring and life-changing experience and proved the ideal antidote for the fear and depression Paul felt during the Trump years. Thanks to the encouragement of friends, he published a memoir about his experience, Paul for Pete: Politics. Theatre. Life. One Man's Adventures (or, How I Became a Septuagenarian Fanboy), currently in its fourth printing, is soon to be released in audiobook form. Although Pete's campaign is the spine and throughline of the book, Paul for Pete also delves into the work as a director, his travels in America, and Pauls's life as an openly gay man in the last half of the 20th/first part of the 21st centuries.

 

Paul makes his home in Ashland, Oregon with his partner of 47 years, actor-director Jim Edmondson. 

 

websites: paulbarnesdirector.com, paulforpete.com

 

Articlte on Michael Gerson's column about Pete from January 2020

 

Artlicle on Why The Christian Right should be concerned

 

ANNOUNCEMENTS

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CREDITS

Production Support- Jeff Manildi

Intro and Outro music created by Ryan Casata