How A Veteran Found Peace In The Arts And Built A Home For Others

A battlefield doesn’t always look like a map with lines and targets. Sometimes it’s a living room at 2 a.m., a mind replaying scenes on a loop, or a rehearsal hall where a single monologue finally cracks something open. We sit down with actor, veteran, and advocate Chris Loverro to trace a life shaped by service—Army Civil Affairs, a decade in Berkeley law enforcement, a brutal line‑of‑duty injury—and a rebirth through the arts that became Warriors for Peace Theater.

Chris shares how empathy became his most reliable discipline, from de‑escalation on the street to humanitarian work in war zones. He talks about the night PTSD nearly took his life, the next morning’s decision to seek help, and the unexpected peace he found years later in movement and Shakespeare. That spark grew into a free training hub for veterans and civilians, where classes are safe, rigorous, and designed for catharsis. We explore gender‑bent casting, why Shakespeare still lands 400 years on, and how shared stages narrow the civil–military divide. Chris recounts a powerful day of fellowship with a Muslim community in Los Angeles—dance, text, and a meal—to stand against Islamophobia and remind us that art is a common language.

We also dig into performance nutrition. Sponsor Essential Provisions offers organic, shelf‑stable meals with clean ingredients and a long shelf life, a stark contrast to sugary standard-issue rations. Chris has lived on MREs around the world and explains why better fuel matters for readiness, recovery, and long-term health. The conversation closes with a bold vision: bringing American and Vietnamese veterans together to perform Shakespeare in Vietnam, joined by younger generations, turning former battle lines into shared lines of dialogue.

If you care about mental health, veteran reintegration, community healing, or the craft that turns pain into purpose, this story will move you. Hear how art, empathy, and real food create a blueprint for resilience—and then help us spread it. Subscribe, share with a friend who needs hope, and leave a review to help more listeners find this conversation.

For Essential Provision Meals Ready to Eat (MREs) and Sustain sports blends go to: www.essentialprovisions.com

To learn more about The Warriors for Peace Theatre and to donate to thier wonderful mission, go to: www.WFPtheatre.org

Transcript

Welcome And Sponsor Acknowledgment

SPEAKER_01 0:04

Welcome to the Mightiest Warriors podcast, where we talk with people like you and I who have gone through the forge through their humbling and heroic stories. We break down what's vital and what's essential so we can all be nourished and supported through our shared experience. This episode of The Mightiest Warriors is sponsored by Essential Provisions, a whole foods, nutrition, sports, and performance company dedicated to nourishing the warrior in each of us. And I am just so delighted today to have as our guests uh Christopher Livero. I met uh Chris um uh recently uh after uh he discovered our uh essential provisions, meals ready to eat products on social media. And he he reached out to our CEO. And um Chris's story, as you will see, uh just epitomizes what it is to be a mighty warrior. Chris is an actor with an impressive resume of of acting, and and we'll touch on that. He's a a war veteran, uh an advocate, and really has committed his life to bridging the world of arts and uh uh that of uh veterans, uh many of whom struggle, as we all know, with PTSD, depression, anxiety. And Chris has found remarkable ways to leverage the performing arts uh for veterans as a way of expressing um their feelings, a catharsis, as he would say. Uh and it's it's a beautiful mission. Uh he's the uh uh founder and artistic director of the um uh I believe it's the Warrior for Peace Theater, which uh I just love that that title. And uh Chris is also an advocate for peace around the world. He recently returned um um from uh you know a lot of what's been going on over in in Eastern Europe. And uh we'll hear a little

Meet Chris Livero: Service And Art

SPEAKER_01 2:18

bit about that. But uh Chris, it's a real pleasure to meet you and thank you for taking some time to be with us on the Mightiest Warriors.

SPEAKER_00 2:25

My pleasure, sir.

SPEAKER_01 2:26

Chris, you're in Southern California, I believe. Is is correct. Is that where you were born and raised?

SPEAKER_00 2:32

No, I'm an Oakland kid. You're okay. Grew up in Oakland, California.

SPEAKER_01 2:36

Yeah, yeah. And uh with a life so uh noteworthy for service, uh, where as you look back in your childhood, did you have inspiration uh at a young age that kind of set you on this trajectory? Or how did that all evolve for you?

SPEAKER_00 2:53

You want to talk about my childhood, so I guess we have to go back about a century. That sounds about right. Well, that you know, I wasn't thinking we were gonna talk about my childhood, but actually now that you mention it, I guess there is kind of a connection there that's an interesting story. Um, so I grew up in a multicultural family. My mother is from the island of Guam, she immigrated here after World War II, and my father's Italian American.

Roots, Identity, And Early Humanitarian Spark

SPEAKER_00 3:20

So I grew up in a you know diverse multicultural family in a multicultural city. And I always had a fascination with other cultures. Like when we had library time in in school, I would always just get an encyclopedia and look at all the different cultures, all the different countries, and I was fascinated by that. And I think the humanitarian uh slant came about when I was about four or five years old. The reason I say I was that young is because I didn't know how to read yet. However, so maybe I was three, four years old. Uh, and my dad had a book that uh had a photograph of a child in Africa who was starving, and he was, and I, and you know, how your stomach expands from the gases from starvation. And I said, Dad, why is this child that was about my age, why does it, why does the child look fat yet they're starving? And um, he explained to me that this child was eating pebbles just to put something in their stomach. And I think that's, you know, when I saw that at such a young age, that there was another child uh that was starving, I that did something to me. And then so ever since then, I think I had an affinity for what's going on, the suffering that's going on in the world. And that started, you know, I uh studied uh humanitarian work in college and volunteered in Somalia, the formal Yugoslavia. Um, you know, just I gravitated towards a life of service, both to serve my country as a soldier twice, including at war, to serve my community as a police officer. And now just recently I returned from my fifth trip in Ukraine. Um, so uh now that you mention it, it I I guess you can sort of point to my childhood as far

Choosing Law Enforcement As Service

SPEAKER_00 5:15

as when I started thinking in terms of you know, outside of myself and my community and kind of in a in a global uh mindset.

SPEAKER_01 5:24

Yeah, yeah. And so you were a police officer with the Berkeley police officers, city of Berkeley. City of Berkeley. And what what sort of brought you to law enforcement? That's um uh yeah, it's not for everyone.

SPEAKER_00 5:39

Uh that's an interesting question. You're right, it's not for everyone. Uh it is one of the greatest jobs in the world. Um because you get to go to work every day and help people. Like, why do people call the police? Because there's an emergency or they need help. So it's it's it's a beautiful, you know, it um, I mean, I just I did it for 10 years and loved it every single day. I did it. I was working with great people. Um, but I think um, you know, it's interesting because when I was in college, I thought that's the last thing I'd ever want to do. And um, but I I was a mediator, a community mediator in Oakland and Berkeley. Um, and I was studying uh conflict resolution in college. I went to UC Berkeley. And the more I thought about it, um, the more I realized, wow, this is a profession where you get to go use your conflict resolution skills, your mediation skills. Um, if you really care about the community and its well-being, this will put you right into the front lines of that work. And it was the, I think what really attracted me to it was it's so gratifying to go to work every day and you you get to go and and help people and you get to go and help solve problems. And it just seemed like it was a perfect fit. And so when I did it, I just realized, wow, what a what a great career choice this this turned out to be. I loved it. I mean, it was so satisfying. It really is, despite all of our problems, that we have many problems in law enforcement. Yes, we need to do better. Um, but to be able to work um in that capacity and to work with the level of people in my department was just it was just extremely satisfying.

SPEAKER_01 7:19

And you did that right out of college?

SPEAKER_00 7:21

Uh so I was in the army right after right after college. Okay. Did my three years active duty, got out, went to college, uh, worked uh as a mediator for a bit, and then I worked at a homeless shelter in San Francisco. That was my first real job out of college.

SPEAKER_02 7:38

Wow.

SPEAKER_00 7:39

Um, went to Europe for a bit to study uh with the international um the European Peace University. And then um, yeah, then I settled in law enforcement and then I went back in the army.

SPEAKER_01 7:51

Wow. Yeah, what a what a remarkable, even at that stage sort of evolution. Um it I love that you uh uh used your uh skills for conflict management and mediation as a central part of your law enforcement role. I um I think it's easy to um I practice medicine for for many, many years. And 30 or so years ago, it struck me that uh conflict felt like a growth industry. Uh in healthcare, there was a lot of conflict sometimes, you know, between a uh a patient and the hospital, a physician, sometimes uh physicians in the same practice were struggling to get along. I would work with uh family members, you know, dealing with the trauma of a loved one who was ill, and the family members couldn't get along. And so I found that um having training in mediation uh conflict management uh really um gave me uh a bridge to almost any interpersonal interaction that helped with traction and relationship capital. Did you you must

Empathy, Mediation, And Policing

SPEAKER_01 9:10

have have found that to have been a huge skill um within the department and certainly as an individual?

SPEAKER_00 9:16

Yeah, well, I mean, certainly, you know, it's interesting when you go through the uh selection process to be a police officer, which is quite vigor rigorous, actually.

SPEAKER_01 9:24

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 9:25

Um one of the things that they look for is your ability to not just um be able to solve conflicts under stress, to solve problems under stress. But one of the primary characteristics we look for in law enforcement is your ability to empathize with another human being. And um, man, if you can do that, um it not just obviously in law enforcement, because that's one of the most important characteristics a police officer could have is to be able to empathize with someone, but just in life, like you were saying, in any career, in any profession, because there is conflict. There's interpersonal conflict, there's community conflict, and as we all know, there's global conflict. And I think so much of it has to do with the fact that we fail to see another human being as a part of ourselves. We see them as the other, and then it makes it easy to categorize them, to dehumanize them, um, to treat them differently. Uh and so the ability to, you know, if you couple uh empathy with mediation skills, it it helps you not just in my previous professions, but in life in general.

SPEAKER_01 10:37

Yeah, that that is so profound, Chris. And I think empathy um as a skill that can be cultivated, developed, uh is uh really where the rubber meets the road in most interpersonal interactions. And um uh I've really been uh interested through the years in emotional intelligence, social intelligence, and empathy is really at at the core uh of that. And and so um at a very young age, yeah, you were you were quite aware.

Army Civil Affairs And 9/11

SPEAKER_01 11:10

Uh and did how long did you serve on the on the police force in Berkeley?

SPEAKER_00 11:16

10 years. So interestingly enough, uh so I went back in the army, so I joined the police department in '98. I went back in the army in 2001, reserves. This time in the reserves, not active duty, so I could keep my civilian career as a police officer.

SPEAKER_01 11:33

Was this after 9-11?

SPEAKER_00 11:34

No, and so good question. So I joined in in 01, but I joined before 9-11 happened.

SPEAKER_01 11:41

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 11:42

And the reason I joined, believe it or not, is because it it relates back to my my education in at Cal, UC Berkeley, where I studied international conflict resolution. Um, I had found out that the Army had a special unit called Civil Affairs, whose job it is to conduct humanitarian operations on the battlefield. Like our job is to interface with the civilian population and conduct needs assessments and try and take care of them. So I studied that in college and I volunteered in Somalia and a couple other places researching that. So I decided, well, you know, I can go back in the reserves, keep my job as a police officer. So I did that to join that specific unit. And then I and then 9-11 happens, and so I joined, well, so I volunteered to go to Afghanistan, uh, Baybach. You know, I saw the Twin Towers fall just like everybody else. And I immediately thought, you know, I want to be a part of the operation that goes after the people who murdered us. And so the first couple years of the war, people uh I don't think realized we had we only had about 15,000 troops in Afghanistan. But because of the attack on our homeland, everybody wanted to go, right? So you couldn't get a slot to go. So it wasn't until 03 that they finally were asking for volunteers. And so, of course, I volunteered to go to Afghanistan. We got mobilized. Uh, we were attached to an active duty infantry unit,

Iraq Deployment And Aftermath

SPEAKER_00 13:10

the second uh part of the second infantry division out of Fort Lewis. And three months into our mobilization, uh, we got diverted to Iraq. So I ended up going there for a year. So I I was there attached to an infantry brigade. I was there when the insurgency started. So it was quite busy. Um I survived that. I come back to my civilian job as a police officer, and within a year, I get injured in the line of duty to the point where it ends my career. Um, I had stumbled upon a kidnapping in progress. Um, this guy had abducted a woman from her home, attacked her, uh, was taking her uh allegedly to go kill her. Um I pulled over the car and uh got her out and uh got in a fight with the suspect, and I got tangled up with his vehicle and uh crushed some discs in my back, and eventually that ended my law enforcement career. And so I I transitioned to uh filmmaking because I wanted to learn what it was like to make a documentary to uh examine the effects of war on families. And then during that process, I realized that being in front of camera was more cathartic than being behind camera. And so I uh around that time, the police department said the doctors were not going to clear me to go back to full duty, so they medically retired me. And I thought, well, you know, let me just pursue this. So I went back to school using the post-9-11 GI Bill, studied acting, studied Shakespeare at the College of Marin, um, started auditioning for plays, got cast as Orlando

Line‑Of‑Duty Injury And Career Pivot

SPEAKER_00 14:50

and As You Like It, and the rest is history. Wow.

SPEAKER_01 14:54

What a story. Uh so you uh can only imagine you save this woman's life in the line of duty. Um you you have this, right? The the cosmos sometimes gives us feedback that we we'd rather not have, uh, which obviously changes your life, uh, at least in terms of of your ability to continue in law enforcement. And then this new chapter kind of opens up. Um had you not had much uh interest or experience in acting or film zero.

SPEAKER_00 15:29

No, I I I took an acting class just for fun years ago in college with no expectation of ever pursuing it. Um but yeah, you know, so there's another part of the story, which is when I came back from Iraq, uh, I was almost one of those statistics that you read about. 22 servicemen and women per day are committing suicide. And there was one night when my uh when I returned where my my my symptoms of PTSD were so acute that I almost took my life. You know, I was sitting, I was self-medicating, sitting in my room alone at night, and I had a loaded Glock pistol in my mouth, and I started to pull the trigger. Something brought me back from the brink. The very next day I went to the Oakland vet center and said, I need to get I need help. And so for the next 10 years, it

Near Suicide, PTSD, And Seeking Help

SPEAKER_00 16:20

was a journey to try and get whole again, um, to heal, to find that catharsis. And it wasn't until I moved to LA and 10 years later where I was uh doing the arts, acting, and dance. I was dancing with this modern dance company called Diabolo, who has a veterans program where they put veterans through in a very, very intense training program to put together a modern dance piece, a movement piece, if you will. And then we toured it. We even performed at the Kennedy Center in DC. And there was a moment in when I had it during rehearsal when I had an epiphany, and I realized that this is the first time I truly felt at peace in 10 years of since returning from war. And so that just kind of I found, you know, my bliss, I found my calling, my mission, which is to use the arts to help other veterans find catharsis and help them with reintegration and PTSD. You know, there is obviously a place for everything that the VA offers, you know, whether it's, you know, you need to go on medication to help with depression or talk therapy, whatever it is. What I always say is what we offer in the arts, and with my theater company, Warriors for Peace Theater, and the same thing with Diablo, is we offer an additional form of therapy through movement, through acting, through dance, that is um just proven to be very profoundly effective for veterans. And civilians, of course.

SPEAKER_01 17:57

Yeah, that is so powerful, Chris. So what was um so you were at the end of your rope, it it sounds like, and um um I mean what's going through your mind? What what is it what what what was it that um prevented your life from ending at that time, if if I

Discovering Catharsis In Acting And Dance

SPEAKER_01 18:20

can ask? And if you don't want to even go there, that's okay. But uh I think it's was there like was there something that some some purpose or source of meaning that left you thinking, you know, it I just cannot do this because of yeah, well, so first of all, to take a step back, you know, I did it's not that I wanted to die, it's just that I didn't want to live anymore.

SPEAKER_00 18:46

You know, like the war was playing in my mind 24 hours nonstop. I couldn't it's it felt like there was a lead blanket lying on top of me, suffocating me. You know, visions of the war, uh, you know, I all the symptoms that you would have, right? Um hypervigilance and all of survivor's guilt was a lot of it. And so I don't know that I could even tell you what brought me back from the from the brink, because I was actually I started to take the slack out of the trigger. Um, I don't know if there was a higher power that pulled me back. Um, my higher self that was telling me you have much more to do in this life. It's not your time. I I don't know. You know, I cannot answer that. But I do know that take having and I encourage other veterans and well, I I always say veterans, but of course trauma is something everybody experiences. I encourage anybody suffering with depression or suicidal thoughts to understand that it takes an act of it's an act of courage to get help. You know, in our military culture, the warrior culture, traditionally it's been seen as an act of weakness to get help. It's an act of strength. Yeah we need you around. It's okay to have been affected by war or any trauma. It doesn't mean you're weak. Some of our greatest warriors

Founding Warriors For Peace Theater

SPEAKER_00 20:05

have PTSD and they get help, they get counseling, they talk to somebody. So never think that it's a sign of weakness to get help. Um, so yeah, you know, I like I said, the very next morning I drove down to the Oakland BA Center or the vet center, and I think there was a guy, I think his name was Belding, who probably saved my life. He was a Vietnam veteran, and he just kind of opened my eyes to the fact that what you're going through is normal. Plenty of people experience it, every generation has experienced it. It's okay to get help. And then, like I said, that started the 10-year journey, but it wasn't until the arts that I realized um how effective this form of catharsis could be, and it you know, it saved me.

SPEAKER_01 20:50

Yeah. I've had some experience, uh, nothing like what you describe, Chris, but in the uh world of adults with uh disabilities, uh intellectual and developmental disabilities, uh, many of whom suffer with depression and anxiety, um social phobia, it's hard to be out in public often. My son has Down syndrome, and we have a um um uh a community arts group that um it its mission is not unlike Warriors for Peace, it's using the performing and the graphic arts as a uh context for helping adults with developmental disabilities express themselves. And I and I've I've seen so many extraordinary transformations, uh, both of my son, I've seen, I've seen adults on the spectrum become more verbal, more socially interactive. Uh I've seen adults with with an inability to go out and really function socially, stand up on stage and and do Shakespeare. Uh and it's um it's such a brilliant context for connecting with others. And and so um, yeah, how how um uh how did you reach out to veterans who who might find um you know Warriors for Peace Theater as a as an opportunity? Do you do you offer uh training programs? Um great great question. You know, have have people referred to you perhaps through the VA? How does that work? How do you connect?

Building Community And Free Training

SPEAKER_00 22:35

All the above, although not through the VA. So turns out um that LA has, I think, the largest veterans population in the country. And because LA is where the industry is at, the film industry, there are a lot of veterans in Los Angeles studying acting and acting, doing theater. So it was it was, you know, there's a there's a couple organizations that I am a part of. There's the American Legion post-43 in Hollywood, and there's another organization called the VME, Veterans in Media and Entertainment. And so there was a whole community of veterans in the industry just yeah, waiting for for veterans to come be a part of. So it's kind of it was like there was a turnkey community just waiting for for me in my company. And so recruiting veterans, um, letting veterans know about what we offer is great. And everything that we do for veterans is free. And that's part of our mission, is to um so if you take our acting classes, it's if you're a veteran, there's no charge for it.

SPEAKER_01 23:36

Wow. And this is uh is it Shakespeare predominantly what you're doing, or is there a whole range of of the that's a good question, too.

SPEAKER_00 23:45

So the name of the company is Warriors for Peace Theater. But even though our so our all-star instructors are Shakespeare, you know, actors, so Louisa Rossiger is one of our main teachers right now. She's got a Shakespeare background. Ann Noble, Scott Ferrara, Susan Angelo, we've had so many great instructors,

Shakespeare As A Bridge For Healing

SPEAKER_00 24:05

and they're all theater actors and film actors with an emphasis on Shakespeare. So we love the Bard, uh, but that's not all that we do. So if you're intimidated by Shakespeare, all the more reason to come study with us. Um but if you're you know not into Shakespeare, come study with us anyway, because we're we're just a theater company.

SPEAKER_01 24:25

Yeah. Yeah. So I could imagine what while I'm sure uh people might have be interested in theater, but you're a veteran, you're struggling, just trying to, you know, find some traction in your life, maybe, maybe uh never even thought of yourself as someone who could who could be on stage, be uh be you know, performing in that context. So just give me some examples of some of the transformation you've seen. Oh wow. Some of your I mean, uh the stories have to be incredible.

SPEAKER_00 24:56

Yeah, yeah. I mean, so uh a shameless plug. If you just go to our website on the homepage, there's uh a half dozen or so testimonials of veterans and civilians that have done the work. And you have people, you know, uh my friend Anthony Simpson, who's a Marine, did 20 years, uh, four combat tours, I think 500 combat patrols and missions, blown up, wounded, cancer survivor. And he said that this, you know, he was a part. I cast him in our production of Julius Caesar. And he said that this work has changed his life. And I can even say that, and so many others have said that. And then some of the civilians, like Tori Danner, who's an amazing actress. I cast her as uh Mark Anthony in our production of Julius Caesar. And, you know, and hearing her and other civilians talk about what it's like to work with veterans, you know, it narrows that civil military divide. Less than half a percent of the country is serving. Um, so there's a disconnect between the veteran veterans community and the civilian world. So it has the added benefit of narrowing that civil military divide. But the nature of the work, just providing them a sense of tribe, which is something that we miss from being

Transformations: Veterans And Civilians

SPEAKER_00 26:10

in the military.

SPEAKER_01 26:10

Yes, that's great.

SPEAKER_00 26:11

Being in a community that you know has your back. Um and that collaboration, working with civilians. Um, it's great for the veterans, it's great for the civilians. Um, it's just, you know, it's just we create a safe, productive, positive, magical environment for people to just express themselves and open up parts of themselves that quite frankly some of these other forms of therapy fall short in. So um you know, that's one example. There's many examples of of people going through this cathartic process of performing and seeing how it just heals them. You know, because art, I like to say that art is is that which reminds us that we're all human. It's what it's the common denominator of humanity. And art transcends politics and brings people together. And one of the things that we like to use the arts for is not just for the personal catharsis, but to bring communities together through the arts. So I'll give you another example. Um, and it was the timing was interesting. It was just after a mass shooting at a mosque, I think it happened in New Zealand. Um I I forget exactly.

SPEAKER_01 27:28

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 27:28

I walks into a mosque and just massacres everybody. So Islamophobia is something that you know exists here in the United States as well. And so I thought, wait a minute. Um these these last couple wars we fought in Muslim countries. So veterans today have skin in the game. If anybody is gonna have Islamophobia, it would be us, because you know, we've been at war with you know, uh in places where we Muslims have killed our brothers and sisters. So if anybody was gonna hold hate in our heart, it would be us. So I felt it would it was important for us to be the ones to make a stand against Islamophobia and say,

Art Against Islamophobia: Shared Fellowship

SPEAKER_00 28:10

wait a minute, I don't care what you look like or what religion you worship, you're an American. An American is an American. This is the land of freedom of religion, right? First Amendment. Um, you're no less valuable because you're of this group or you you worship this religion. If you're we're we're all brothers and sisters, we're all Americans, and this hate has got to stop. So, what I did is I went to a local Muslim community center in Culver City, just walked in one day and said, Hey, I'm a veteran, um, I'm a part of a veteran community. We want to come support you and just have uh a day of fellowship and brotherhood and sisterhood with my community and your community. And so I recruited a bunch of my Shakespeare geeks, you know, um, and uh so I and my dance geeks, my my all my nerds. Um, we're not really nerds, but so I recruited from the Shakespeare community, um, Armin Shimmerman and Scott Ferrara and uh Jacques Himes, the founder of Diablo, and we invited members of the local Muslim community to come join the veterans community and just have a day of dance and Shakespeare and exercises and sharing a meal together. It's just like, yeah, we're gonna support you. Yeah, we we uh we want to make a stand against hate. Um, again, if anybody, you know, we have skin in the game, so if anybody should be making a stand against a lot Islamophobia in America, it should be the veterans community. So we did. And it was uh there's actually a video of it on our website. It was it was amazing, you know, and it just shows that the arts can bring people together. It bridges gaps, it reminds us that we're all human.

SPEAKER_01 29:55

What a what a beautiful message, and perhaps no more important than. in in in current times. And I love I love this um recurring thread through all of the amazing and compassionate uh outreach that you do, Chris. This this um uh illusion of separateness that um is is so pervasive and uh it it it's it's it it seems so elusive finding ways to to transcend that that perception and um I I can see how the arts would um really melt away uh you know these these perceptions that are at the end of the day very subjective and very arbitrary yet we hold to hold on to them like like they're an absolute truth and any bridge building really has to start right with with changing the way you perceive who you are and and who others are and um and I just love this this truth that we're all brothers and sisters uh I mean so many

Challenging Stereotypes And Gender In Casting

SPEAKER_01 31:11

and uh and and you know anytime I sort of explore more ancient um sort of spiritual wisdom um that's really the the the foundation is we're not separate from other humans we're not separate from land nature right animals uh and it and it does it totally changes the way you begin to feel and um uh it's it's just such a powerful message um Chris do you um does the the theater group bring um I mean there's there's the performance right but there's right there's the there's the message there's the the context do you do you bring that on the road do you go into schools do you work with with younger adults uh you know so many were sort of struggling with social media to connect in a more effective way uh and we would love to do all of that but we're also struggling as a uh nonprofit that has no funding and no sponsors and so we're be we're barely just keeping uh the lights on as far as uh providing the classes um hopefully this spring we could um raise enough funds to start doing some of the projects like that both the theatrical productions and just outreach projects yes well I mean we've also done you know we did a couple productions um at the American Legion post 43 in Hollywood and I I called it um what did I call it uh it was called the uh the women of Shakespeare and so one of the one of the things that you know we you you everybody realizes is that in Hollywood most of the leads go to men most stories are written with the main character that's a man if you go to a movie theater go to a big movie theater where there's like 10 shows playing and count how many of the leads in those films are men.

SPEAKER_00 33:04

So and one of the beauties of Shakespeare is we always what we call gender bend. We reverse roles like for instance I cast Tori Bander to be the lead in our production of Julius Caesar Mark Antony the role played by um Marlon Brando in the film adaptation. So but so what we did is we you know I came up with the idea of let's have a production we'll we'll have a a woman director a woman stage manager an all-women cast and it's just to highlight and showcase the talent of women and so you had women playing uh Henry V you had women playing Hamlet you had women playing all the you know iconic roles in Shakespeare um and we did that a couple times so again it's just another way that we figure figure out how to use the arts to um address not just trauma and healing but to address larger social issues of conflict

Why Shakespeare Endures For Trauma Work

SPEAKER_00 34:00

and sexism, misogynism, xenophobia, phobia. Yeah it's just all there I mean the arts is just it's a gold mine for bringing people together. And you know our our mission with Warriors for Peace Theater is we it's not just about helping an individual find healing in catharsis. It's also about bringing people together.

SPEAKER_01 34:24

Yes and they go hand in hand um ours is a journey meant to be shared and right so many people that are struggling as you know better than most Chris uh really perceive that they're kind of alone out there um and uh and I love you know the the um uh the theater as a as a um uh kind of a ticket to um chisel away at those stereotypical sort of roles uh be it gender be it race be it whatever um uh it it forces you into a different mindset a different context i i would imagine that that would be pretty profound uh in how it it impacts people yeah all the world all the world's a stage right all the world's a stage man and you are you are bringing that uh into sort of life in a way that uh really kind of meets some of the challenges head on though it i'm sure for those performing it you know you're performing right so it's in the context of of um uh expression and uh creativity and spontaneity and that kind of takes you out of the uh ruminating uh right these these etched patterns of how we look at ourselves how we look at others and so i i love that um the yeah that that connection and there's there's so much material especially with shakespeare you know why is he so why has he been so popular for 400 years is because Shakespeare speaks to the human condition all these you know what what are Shakespeare plays about like loyalty revenge love hate like all of it right well humans are humans and we're the same that we were 400 years ago and so when he can capture that so well uh his work resonates with everybody 400 years later yeah and you know what's also interesting is um because there's such a plethora of material for anybody you know so oftentimes our instructor Louisa Rossiger will say you know in our monologue course someone will bring a monologue to class and she'll she won't say why did you pick that monologue she'll say why did that monologue pick you and you know there's so much there's so much material that no matter what you're going through no matter what your thing is what your issue is what your trauma is what your passion

Safe Spaces, Monologues, And Breakthroughs

SPEAKER_01 36:55

is there's a scene there's a monologue there for you and it's just as it's it finds you as much as you find it. Yeah um and then it's you know for for veterans or anybody dealing with trauma um when you when you work on a piece or a character and you bring part of yourself to it it it helps you to process that we we see in class all the time people processing things that they have not been able to face in any other modality you know whether it's antidepressants medication therapy counseling whatever it is again there's a place for all that but this work is able to open people up in ways and they will say wow I've never you know we we've had we had a veteran talk about something horrific that happened to her in I think Iraq um and she said wow I've this is the first time I've ever talked about this I'm like wow that's power wow and why why was it that she was never able to talk about this before probably because she never felt comfortable and safe and supported in the way that this work in this tribe can for someone yeah well I mean that's just totally profound Chris um I'm gonna I I feel badly pausing it all uh this is just such a profound um conversation but I I I do want to briefly just mention uh uh this show is sponsored together yeah it's what brought us together make the plug so so thank you for that yeah so the the the Mightiest Warriors podcast is sponsored by essential provisions i'm I proudly serve as their medical director and they they make um really first to market meals ready to eat that are fully organic

Sponsor Deep Dive: Essential Provisions

SPEAKER_01 39:00

uh all of the ingredients are um uh made by regenerative farmers uh there isn't a new to nature molecule in in any of our nutritional uh products and um uh right now we have four meals ready to eat uh two bison products two uh vegetarian products and uh in the first quarter of next year we have a couple of salmon dishes some chicken dishes we also have um uh we we call it field fuel it's sustained it many runners are familiar with goo well this was kind of an upgrade it's sort of a quick fuel that's uh delicious and has a lot of protein and energy so um uh serving those who serve others with such courage and compassion is really what Essential Provisions is all about and uh and it brought us together as you said uh Chris and as someone who's eaten many uh MREs in the military and uh we we do some outreach as well with first responders and law enforcement and disaster relief and they're they all just desperately need nutrition that's uh open and eat heat and eat um the these products have uh you know a three to five year shelf life um so for anyone who maybe is um uh feels compelled to have their uh uh you know go bag with with a few days of supplies or people who like to be out in wilderness or or those who just want a meal they can pull off the shelf because they're too tired to prepare something this uh checks all the boxes so uh essential provisions.com and thank you for uh letting me get that in there Chris well no no no no hold on can I jump in please do yeah all right so this is what brought us together um so for those of you watching uh I'm not getting paid to do this definitely not no what I'm what I'm about I'm not one of their you know I have no affiliation with the organization at all uh but uh I would like to share my quick experience so yes um as a veteran uh I've had to live on MREs and we did an operation in Samarra Iraq where for three weeks we were in the field and ate nothing but MREs and um and I've eaten MREs from all over the world.

SPEAKER_00 41:28

I just came back from Ukraine. I had some Ukrainian MREs and you may be the only company in the world that actually offers an MRE that has purely healthy ingredients. You know I think we had a conversation once and I was telling you the the the army issued MRE the US military issued MRE has uh well over 100 grams of sugar in every meal and you're supposed to eat three of these a day and I remember pulling out just the main meal of an MRE once not the dessert not the snack which all have sugar as well but just the main meal had 78

Healthy MREs Versus Standard Rations

SPEAKER_00 42:05

grams of sugar and I'm thinking you add you you factor in the snack and the the peanut butter and the like everything has sugar in it.

SPEAKER_01 42:13

And you're eating three of these a day you're eating hundreds of grams of sugar a day how is that remotely healthy for you and then your company uh essential provisions you read the ingredients organic organic organic organic um no preservatives no sugar it's just like wow thank you for making something that every soldier in the world needs but nobody else makes well that's as uh as sincere and heartfelt as the testimonial could be Chris thank you for that our founder CEO Robin Gentry McGee is a brilliant culinary chef an alchemist as I think of her who developed products years ago for her father who had a traumatic brain injury and she was quick to recognize that the medical establishment and the industry supporting it really had nothing but processed junk food. And when she developed something specifically for her father which transformed his life it it that was clearly the epiphany for her to um get on her hero's journey to to create products that the rest of the world could benefit from. And this is a sort of a second generation of of the company that we've all been together with. And it's what I love about it Chris is all of us like you are come to this from the perspective of human service connection uh we all have have had other careers and we could all be doing other things but this is something we're passionate about and the need is so so great. So thank you for offering that um as we wind down here Chris uh where can people um either get more information about the work that you're doing the warrior for peace theater um and and where might they be able to donate do you do you have a uh uh a uh part of your site where they could donate or a GoFundMe or what what would you suggest because I I know that a lot of people listening to this um you know would feel compelled to try to support the amazing mission that that you've undertaken.

SPEAKER_00 44:29

Well uh thank you for that um so I just renamed I don't can can people watching this see I I renamed my name for the website yes okay so it's well you can just google us warriors for peace theater um and our website is wfpt theater.org yeah um and you can spell it R-E R-E-R.

SPEAKER_01 44:54

Um we have both domains so Warriors for Peace Theater WFP theater dot org and check

How To Support Warriors For Peace

SPEAKER_01 45:00

us out we'll uh just spend a couple of minutes on the homepage listening to the testimonials of our veterans um there's also a uh uh a button on the menu bar if you want to donate um we're looking for sponsors as well um there's a business and we are a nonprofit we're a veteran owned and run nonprofit 501c um but yeah it's you know uh always happy to promote the company and and seek funding but really I just want to get the word out to veterans and civilians because again everything that we do it's not just for veterans it's civilians um as well it's just that we don't charge the veterans um but yeah come check us out and if you're in the LA area come come come drop in on a class you know reach out to us well I will be spreading the word to everyone I know um Chris uh you know at a time of year where we we tend to place a little more emphasis on gratitude and um uh giving uh you know this um I can't imagine a more noble and worthy cause um and so I just um really grateful for what you're doing as you look at the um maybe the five year horizon Chris where what what's on that horizon what what's sort of new and exciting that you find yourself moving toward and um maybe others great question part of that yeah great well obviously we we would like to eventually have enough fun to have our own space our own theater but um god I'm glad you asked that so the story about how we got formed initially was I was doing a play um at the College of Rin.

SPEAKER_00 46:42

I was in as you like it a Shakespeare play and one of my castmates let me know about a group of actors from Iraq who were coming to the Oregon Shakespeare Festival to perform. And apparently they were the first group of actors who were ever allowed to perform Shakespeare live in Iraq I I guess because I maybe under Saddam Hussein you weren't allowed to. And so I I thought wow what an opportunity so I reached out to him and I said hey why don't we get a bunch of actors together who served in Iraq like myself American

Vision: Cross‑Conflict Stages And Vietnam

SPEAKER_00 47:10

veterans and do a joint production with them as a means of bringing our two countries together and and and share the stage together as a form of healing together. And everybody loved the idea but there was no time or money and so I thought well why don't I just form my own theater company and that'll be the mission to use theater to bring different communities together communities that maybe have been in conflict and so one of my goals is to bring some Vietnam veterans back to Vietnam and do a Shakespeare play with their former enemy you know the North some some veterans on their side of the Vietnam War. So imagine having Vietnam veterans American Vietnam veterans Vietnamese veterans who once shared a battlefield together come together after all these years and share the stage together to heal. So that's one of the things that we'd like to get off the ground in the next year or two if we could find the funding. And and you know because you can't have a a play where the entire cast are a bunch of men in their 70s and 80s so uh and because I think healing is a generational um venture we would have younger veterans from my generation Iraq and Afghanistan and other generations sharing the stage with our Vietnam veterans you know on on both sides. So eventually we'd like to partner with theater groups Shakespeare groups veterans groups in Vietnam and then we recruit and train Vietnam American Vietnam veterans and we bring them together what a what a beautiful way to use the arts to promote generational healing.

SPEAKER_01 48:58

Wow and of course you know most Vietnam veterans have never been back to Vietnam so that's uh that's one of the things we like to see uh uh manifest in the near future wow and things like that what a beautiful horizon um Chris I just I just love that uh you gave me the chills you even describing it um one of my closest friends uh served in Vietnam he's been back once and it was somehow yeah yeah it was profound for him just to go back and visit but what you're talking about is a is much more of a an amazing cultural integration and and I just love it. Um well Chris I cannot begin to thank you for enough for um shining your light in the world and for meeting you I don't think anything in my life is random or coincidental. So I have no doubt that art connecting coming together uh was a synchronicity that was probably uh uh just meant to be and um it it's an honor to hear more about your work and it's an honor uh to get your story out there and um please anyone

Closing Gratitude And Ways To Get Involved

SPEAKER_01 50:20

who um is able uh check out um Chris's site uh wfptheater.org and um be generous and uh you know as Shakespeare said to thine own self be true and wow chris you you have epitomized that in in your journey and um we're grateful that you took some time to share that with us. My pleasure thank you so much you be well and and happy holidays to you same to you mark we'll be in touch