No Feeling is Final
The Film
No Feeling is Final was an already-in-motion film project written by and featuring Ted Swartz. When it became a project of CAHS, Ted was enabled to work with director Michelle Milne, videographer Steven Stauffer, and sound and lighting crew at Goshen Theater in Goshen, IN.
No Feeling is Final is a powerful and humorous film, originally to be a live presentation of a book, was filmed on an empty stage during the disorientation of a global pandemic. A pilgrimage of sorts, through Ted's past and into the present, with stories from audience members and tour crew, the film is filled with insight into lives shaped by mental disorders, suicide, the healing nature of storytelling and community, grief and loss, endings, resilience, and forgiveness.
The film is based on the book, Portraits From the Human Faces Tour, which was based on the tour of the play, Laughter is Sacred Space, based on another book by the same title, based on a friendship. Viewers witness the movement of creativity and shared stories over time that ripple out from the complexity and love embedded in human relationship. A story that gathers others along the way, into the sacred dimensions of what life is all about.
viewer from Detroit, MI
No Feeling is Final
trailer
Written & performed by Ted Swartz, No Feeling Is Final builds on the friendship between two artists who, over a 20-year period, create wider and wider circles of connection through art, humor, and soul. It's a film about how mental illness changed everything. It's about Ted's story, and the story of others who intersected with his story, around grief and loss, hope and resilience, forgiveness and transformation.
It's an intimate, funny and vulnerable look at how telling our authentic stories -- both painful and hopeful -- can connect and carry us through hard times together.
Filmed on location at Goshen Theater in Goshen, Indiana. Directed by Michelle Milne, cinematography by Steven Stauffer. Based on the book Portraits from the Human Faces Tour, by Ted Swartz with Valerie Luna Serrels, photography by Steven Stauffer.
No Feeling is Final and You
No Feeling is Final: the Film, will soon be available to purchase as a link for a specified time period for use in groups, classes, and events. Additionally, the StoryGuide by the same title will be available to purchase to accompany the film to provide deeper inquiry into the themes presented in the film for application in viewer's own lives and stories, opening up spaces for deep group connection and personal reflection. Perfect for Sunday School classes, academic classes in middle schools, high schools and universities, and community events and workshops around mental health.
The film and StoryGuide will be ready for purchase in early 2022 on the Ted & Company TheaterWorks website store. If you'd like to be notified when they're available, please subscribe to our mailing list for updates and notices!
Portraits From the Human Faces Tour: Mental Health Struggles and Resilience
By Ted Swartz with Valerie Luna Serrels; photos and book design by Steven Stauffer
This book was published by Ted & Company Theaterworks in 2020, emerging from a previous tour of the play, Laughter Is Sacred Space. The volume presents the faces and stories of people across North America who attended performances of the play, during what was dubbed the Human Faces Tour. Playwright and actor, Ted Swartz, wrote the play as part of his artistic journey in search of healing after losing his best friend and theater partner to suicide in 2007.
Portraits invites readers to reflect on their own stories related to mental health and their own wholeness, as well as reduce the stigmatism around mental illness. In 2021, we raised $8800 to send 250 copies of the book to libraries in prisons and jails in Virginia. Our hope is that the books find their way into the hands and hearts that need to connect with others, even if through stories, to know they are not alone in some of their struggles.
The book can be purchased at the Ted & Company TheaterWorks website.
