Ted and Lee: The Show Must Go On

September 18, 2007: Ted Swartz and Canadian actor Jason Hildebrand, backed by local musician Trent Wagler, delivered a moving and humorous performance of “Fish Eyes” to several hundred receptive people at Eastern Mennonite High School. Until last spring Swartz was part of a well-known duo, Ted and Lee. Swartz’s partner and close friend of twenty years, Lee Eshleman, took his own life last May after a long-fought battle with depression.

“Lee hid his illness pretty well,” said Swartz (left, with Curt Cloninger), in an interview this week. “Lee would say that he was being the best he could be onstage.”

“The shows (without Eshleman) developed until I felt good about them,” said Swartz earlier this week. “The challenge was waiting for the other guys to develop their roles.” Swartz and Eshleman performed mostly religious comedies, delighting their Bible-literate audiences with a new twist on scripture and giving them permission to laugh affectionately at well known stories.

November, 1987: Ted Swartz planned to perform some short comedy pieces for a conference retreat before moving his young family to Harrisonburg, Virginia, in hopes of attending Eastern Mennonite University’s seminary. He intended to go into ministry. Several days before the conference, his weekend partner became unable to go. Faced with this dilemma, Swartz followed former university president Joe Lapp’s recommendation and asked Eshleman, a stranger at the time, to serve as a replacement. The weekend was a success. Though this was not the beginning of the partnership, it was the beginning of their friendship.

Returning to the present, “this past week was good,” said Sue Swartz, Ted’s wife and a teacher at
Eastern Mennonite High School, “I miss Lee, but I need to look at the shows they did as different.”

Overall I feel very positive about the direction,” she added. As good as the new team was, some audience members commented on there being a void where tall, goofy, talented Eshleman used to be. Yet, Sue noted that each actor brings something of himself into the roles and they will be portrayed quite differently depending on who plays them. She feels they will take on new life.

“One time this weird guy wanted to know how much they made,” began a memory of John Leonard, a tall, solidly built Eastern Mennonite High School English teacher who was a close friend to the duo. Smiling slightly he continued: “The guy kept bothering them about it and was becoming pretty agitated, so they put me in front of them to help protect them.” He laughed at the recollection. Since Ted & Lee were a tall pair, it seems unlikely that they would need too much protection.

Ted & Lee were under contract to film thirty two stories with Abington Press, a United Methodist publishing house, when Eshleman died. The publishers “didn’t rally have a choice (on continuing the project), they had so much time invested,” said Ted. He chose some of his many acting friends, often met on the road, to work with him on this major filming project— “people that I knew well. I thought it was important the wake of Lee’s death to be working with people that I knew.”

Leonard has known Ted and Sue Swartz since his childhood and was the ring bearer as a six-year-old at their wedding thirty-one years ago. As an adult Leonard spent free time back stage helping out with the Ted & Lee production. He usually traveled with them about once a year, calling himself “the Roadie.”

“Lee had us laughing pretty much nonstop,” Leonard notes, while reminiscing over the trips. “For some of their shows it was helpful to have someone along who knew the show. I did whatever needed to be done, lights, videotape, drive, etc.”

“Lee was much more cautious (than Ted),” said Sue. Lee was reluctant to start big projects like the recent filming turned out to be. During the interview, Ted mentioned that he always wanted Trent to do the music for the “Fish Eyes” show but that Lee thought it would be too much work. After Lee’s death, Ted was able to incorporate Trent’s music into the performance but, Lee was right, it was a lot of work.

“I think that Ted & Lee’s great gift was their ability to humanize the stories that we all revere in the Bible,” said Bonnie Lofton, who saw the production of “Fish Eyes” recently. “This gift has been preserved in the new production I saw. At times I laughed uproariously. I did notice, though, that the acting team enveloped Ted in hugs at intermission. This transition must be really hard for Ted to make.”

- Kara Lofton (picture courtesy of Ted Swartz)