About David Templeton
Writer-Performer of ‘Wretch Like Me’

David Templeton has been writing as a journalist in the North Bay for the last 20 years. Best known for his work with the North Bay Bohemian as a theater critic and arts reporter, his writings have also has appeared in The Pacific Sun, Theatre Bay Area Magazine, Strings Magazine, Hollywood Life, Fine Life, Encore, the San Francisco Chronicle, The San Francisco Examiner, and many more. David is the creator of the popular monthly column Talking Pictures (his quest for the ultimate post-film conversation), running for over 15 years in papers all over California. Though better recognized for his work as a journalist, David has been performing on stage since the age of 12, not counting his debut as the Black Sheep in Christ Church Episcopal’s 1965 Naticity Pageant. Locally, David has appeared as an actor in several productions with North Bay theater companies. He has been dreaming of doing Wretch Like Me since seeing Josh Kornbluth in Haiku Tunnel, more than 25 years ago. WIth that now-legendary solo show, David recognized the one-person performance style as the perfect way to tell this outrageous and entertaining story.

DAVID TEMPLETON: “‘Wretch Like Me’ is a very personal project, and not simply because the subject matter, springing from my teenage days as a “born-again” Christian, is so very personal. I have always been moved by stories and plays in which undervalued people triumph through their own hard-won realization that their sense of value must come from within, not from the opinions and judgments of those around them. With ‘Wretch Like Me,’ I finally have the opportunity to add my own story to those that have so inspired me over the years. Wretch Like Me is a story about religion, but not a polarizing one, I hope. My hope is that, whether or not audiences have any direct experience with religion or fundamentalism, they will still find plenty to identify with in this show. One of my goals in writing it was to demonstrate, with humor and affection, how the social mechanics of certain faith systems work—or don’t, as the case may be. My other goal was to simply make my audiences laugh, as I have learned to laugh, at the crazy extremes we often go to in order to feel that we have a home, safe place, a community of likeminded souls, somewhere in our world