Finding his way
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Playwright Seth Lepore wants you to know you don't have to live like a refugee. The premiere of Lepore's one-man show, "Losing My Religion: Confessions of a New Age Refugee," happens May 14-15 and 21-22 at Brattleboro's Hooker-Dunham Theater.
It's a guidebook for how to navigate the sea of spiritual paths possible for us to take as human beings.
Lepore would know -- he's followed a lot of them.
Raised as a Catholic in a suburb of Providence, R.I., the Brattleboro resident said an uncle got him interested in Eastern philosophy and meditation.
Also a student of music and theater, he studied religion at a university in Arizona and went on to attend a Buddhist college in Colorado. It was there he took his Buddhist vows and later worked as an event coordinator.
Today, he practices Emotional Freedom Technique, a system that involves using acupuncture points to manipulate the body's energy.
"My spiritual path is an amalgamation," Lepore said.
He is not atheist or agnostic, and he follows no organized religion. That's why he once thought of himself as a refugee.
"I don't fit in," he said.
He rejects religious dogma and said he is "freaked out" by a lot of belief systems out there.
What he does have is a self-described "powerful intuition" and a strong connection to his wife, acupuncturist Sharon Esdale. A spiritual experience, he said, might be taking a walk in the woods with her and meditating.
"To have a connection with something -- nobody else should say that's wrong."
Lepore, 35, said the gist of his theater piece is asking the question of how to create a society open to everybody doing their own thing in terms of religion or spirituality.
He does it through several characters he's created. Some are based in his own experience; others are a mix of people he's known or seen in some media capacity.
One character (he describes her as "crazy") is a combination of Lepore's high school sex education teacher and the author of a book about a popular belief system that touts you can attract what's important to you using your own thoughts.
"She's so convinced she knows how to manifest everything," he said of the character. "It's all about material possessions."
"Losing my Religion" is Lepore's first one-man show in 10 years -- the last was in 1999 and focused on Y2K.
At the very least, he wants audiences who see his latest play to question religion and spirituality rather than blindly accept it.
"I want people walking out creating a dialogue with each other about faith and belief -- I want people excited to talk about what this stuff means to them."
