Goshen College received a visit from David Sedaris, an acclaimed humorist and New York Times bestselling author on Wednesday, Oct. 15. Sedaris is currently on tour for his forthcoming essay collection, “The Land and its People.” His performance in Sauder Concert Hall was part of GC’s Performing Arts Series.
Jeshua Franklin, executive director of the Music Center, said, “He is in some ways a little off the beaten path for us in terms of our regular season, partially because he’s not music. We don’t have lots of spoken word artists that come through.”According to Franklin, this meant that the event brought in an especially large number of first-time attendees of the Performing Arts Series. At some concerts, when he asks to see who’s there for the first time, there are only five or six hands up. Franklin said, “But there was a whole field of folks who were raising their hands at David’s performance.”
Duane Stoltzfus, professor of communication, attended the event with his wife. He said, “I’ve read his essays in The New Yorker but this was the first time I had seen him, and his wild shoes in person. He has such a great sense of timing, making a funny line even funnier.”
Sedaris explained to the audience that he uses his tours to read from essays and other works which he has not published yet, using the audience as a sort of editor. Throughout his performance, he scratched notes on his papers for changes to make to the essays.
Robert Brenneman, professor of criminal justice and sociology, said, “I was most impressed by his ability to capture and hold the attention of a very large crowd for almost two hours while only reading and occasionally speaking off the cuff. That is a rare gift of words that not many people have today.”
Lucca Kauffman, junior social work major, said, “He was very intriguing. I didn’t really know what to expect. I knew my parents really liked him, but I didn’t know if that humor would translate to our generation.”
Kauffman continued, “His short essays that he read aloud were both meaningful and funny. I think he had a good balance of that.”
Franklin described the process of finding performers for each season. He interacts with agents and often reaches out to try and acquire certain performers. He said, “in the case of David Sedaris, his agent actually reached out to us.”
The preparation for events such as this varies significantly. Don Hunter, performance venue production manager, said, “The David Sedaris concert was actually probably the easiest of the Performing Arts Series that I’ve done here.” The only difficult part was the book signing that took place at the end of the evening, at which a specific person was assigned to enforce Sedaris’ strict no photos or videos policy.
Franklin was Sedaris’ handler during his time in Goshen, since he was traveling without a team. He recounted an anecdote that Sedaris shared with him, in which Sedaris turned out to have met the driver who brought him to Goshen from an event about nine years earlier. Sedaris didn’t remember him, but he keeps an intricate diary. Franklin said, “So he pulled out his diary and found his notes on that driver from nine years ago.”
Stoltzfus said, “I was amazed by how quickly time went. There he was, one person, alone on the stage, and he held the audience of [over 650] people rapt for nearly two hours.”
Brenneman said it is Sedaris’ trademark that gives people an appreciation of something they might have taken for granted. He said, “He is very irreverent, which was funny to hear in Sauder Hall.”
Brenneman said that he used Sedaris’ description of marriage as part of his lesson on the sociology of marriage. Brenneman said, “Here he was praising a quote-unquote traditional convention: marriage. But in a way that only he can, which is sarcastic, cutting, irreverent, funny and ultimately endearing.”
