Artists in Residence – Judith Shotwell & Mary Sutton
October 5 – 11, 2026
Under Baba’s direction, masts perform in the play “Raja Gopichand” in September 1938
Meher Baba said of God, “He is the Creator, the Producer, the Actor and the Audience in His own Divine Play.” And in His compassion — so that we may please Him — He allows us to take on those roles most wonderfully too, through the art of theatre.
From the earliest days, His followers — women and men both, sometimes even the masts — often entertained Him with skits and plays. Plays continue to be a centerpiece of celebration among Baba’s lovers — performed for Mehera’s birthday, for Baba’s birthday, and simply as a way of joyous communion in Meherabad and around the world.
Join Judith Shotwell and Mary Sutton as they share how Baba influenced their journeys with this ancient art form and give you a taste of the skills that make theatre so delightful, revealing, and relevant on the path of Love.
About the artists:
Judith first saw Meher Baba’s name in graffiti painted by exuberant returnees from the 1969 Darshan. He has been reeling her in ever since. One of His most powerful lures has been a love of theatre: in the mid-1970s a dear Baba friend happened to recommend an acting class at Atlanta’s Academy Theatre. It was the beginning of an unexpected career in theatre and music — first as a long-time professional member of the Academy’s resident company (acting, playwriting, directing, and educating), then as a free-lance theatre artist, and finally as the founding artistic director of Circle of Love (using harp and voice to support the dying). By His Grace the means were often there for numerous trips to India, which gave many sweet opportunities to perform for the Mandali and His Lovers in Meherabad and Meherazad. What a gift now to introduce Meher Center participants to some of the challenges and joys along the path of theatre.
Mary trained under Stella Adler in New York, then at Harvard’s American Repertory Theatre — until she came to know the Beloved, Meher Baba, and everything turned. Out of love for Him, she left theatre’s traditional stage for theatre as service, joining teachers and teaching artists to build the education departments of two Tony Award-winning theatres — TheatreWorks in Silicon Valley and Houston’s Alley Theatre — carrying theatre into children’s hospitals, rural settings, juvenile detention facilities, conservatories, and classrooms, and performing and teaching acting at Meherazad along the way. The shift was, in truth, an offering to Him, revealing that the spiritual and theatrical disciplines overlap: an actor’s presence is a journey toward wholeness; an ensemble’s trust is a willingness to be shaped by others rather than alone; a director’s eye listens for what a person or community needs to hear. These departments reached hundreds of thousands of students, teachers, and families, and often, a poem or play became the first time someone had ever been fully seen, heard, and loved — glimpses, in every room, of what lives in all of us: Him.