Lessons In Laughter

An interview with Torry Martin by Wilma Banner Curtis as it appeared in Reaching Out Magazine. (Reproduced by permission)

Torry Martin doesn’t look like your typical Christian performer: long hair, beard, and his trademark hippie attire. “If you saw my picture,” Martin told Reaching Out in a recent phone interview from his home in Sevierville, Tennessee, “you’d probably say I look more like a church custodian than a Christian entertainer.”

By his way of thinking Martin has been a Christian for less than ten years. Growing up he attended his parent’s church, but his heart wasn’t really in it.
“I learned all the proper phrases and Christian lingo,” he said, “but I wasn’t living it outside the church. For me, it was more like belonging to a social club where the teens got to go to Denny’s afterwards for coffee and pancakes. Eating is my calling, so if I had to sit through a sermon to get to do it, then I figured that was a small price to pay.”
He might not have been committed to Christianity, but there is one thing in his life that he never wavered on and that his love of performing.

Torry first realized he had a talent for acting when he was in the third grade. He gave an Oscar worthy performance for his third grade teacher, telling her of his inoperable brain tumor and why it would be dangerous for him to take his spelling test that day. “I told her that too much thinking could cause my brain to explode and my parents would be very upset if that were to happen again, because the last time they had to repaint the living room,” Martin said.
Realizing his overactive imagination might be a key to his success in life; the teacher asked Torry to consider a career as a comedian and even offered to give him extra credit if he could spell inoperable. She then proceeded to cast him as Prince Charming in the school production of Cinderella. Torry says he has been typecast ever since.
After graduating from high school in Washington State, Martin studied acting at a college in Los Angeles for a couple of years. He didn’t graduate, because Columbia Artists offered him a leading role in a touring company production of “Around the World in 80 Days”. Parts of the performance were challenging for a fellow of his dimensions. “I had to learn how to tap dance and how to clog,” he said. “I’m a pretty big guy, so, I went through wooden shoes like they were kindling, let me tell ya.”

He soon started getting roles in other stage productions as well as doing some acting in commercials and on television. He then branched out into stand up comedy and had the honor of being asked personally by Bill Gates to be the entertainment at a Microsoft party in Seattle on two separate occasions. “At first I was intimidated by him, I mean after all, Bill Gates is the world’s richest man. But as soon as I realized that he had even less fashion sense than I did, I relaxed enough to feel comfortable around him”.

While Torry was experiencing the beginnings of his career in Hollywood and thoroughly enjoying the fringe benefits of mingling with celebrities like Robin Williams, Walter Matthua, Michael J. Fox, and Whoopi Goldberg, he soon found himself questioning the course his life was taking. “I enjoyed the accolades that came with my comedy gigs but not necessarily the lifestyle,” he said. “I definitely made some wrong choices.”

Martin became so uncomfortable in that setting that on a whim he decided to escape his Hollywood trappings and embark on a trip to Alaska with Robert Browning, a Christian friend who was studying for ministry. “I needed a friend I could trust and some space to figure things out. The Last Frontier seemed like a perfect location for doing that.”

Shortly after he arrived in Alaska he landed some acting jobs in local commercials, which led to his being hired as a television host for the “Fox Kids Club,” a children’s program for a Fox Network affiliate in Anchorage. At the same time he started to renew his interest in Christianity through the influence of his friend.

“Actually I was kind of hoping to secretly disprove the Bible, thinking if I could do that then I’d be able to live the way that I wanted without any of the guilt and return to my life in Los Angeles.” That didn’t happen.

On a lark he decided to sign up for some of the Precept Ministry Bible study classes that a local church was offering. It was there that he started doing an in depth study of the Bible. “It was amazing! I started doing word studies on the original Greek and Hebrew of the Bible and I soon became convinced that it was indeed the word of God,” he said.
After becoming a Christian Torry decided to take a two-year break from acting to do nothing but study the Bible. He and his friend found a ramshackle cabin in Bear Valley to move into and fix up in exchange for free rent. “The place was a disaster area,” Martin said, “it had a really horrible electrical toilet and the whole cabin structure was supported on railroad ties that were used to keep it from sinking into the protected wetlands around it. But it sort of sank into the ground anyway so the end result was that all the floors were tilted at different angles.” The duo decided to christen their new home with the name of “Cabin Vertigo,” and it was there that they really started drawing closer to God.
“When you live in a remote area on the Alaskan tundra with no TV or radio and limited human contact you’d be surprised how easy it is for you to find time to pray. In fact one of my main prayers was just for survival!”

He spent the winters enduring the harsh conditions that brought nine feet of snow and the summers hoping to avoid confrontations with the nearby grizzly bears who prowled the area. “Those bears were everywhere,” he said, “we even had to shoot one from the kitchen door. I lived in Bear Valley and believe me, they gave it that name for a reason.” He credits the living conditions of the cabin for sharpening his comical abilities, claiming that a good sense of humor can help anyone survive their surroundings.

It was while being trapped in the cabin for a month during his first winter that he began to write. “There wasn’t anything else to do so I’d read the Bible, pray and then write about whatever was on my mind.”

Fortunately for us whatever he wrote came out funny.

It was after developing a relationship at his home church with Pastor Jack Aiken of King’s Way in Eagle River, Alaska that things really started to change for him. Martin and his roommate began eating meals at the Pastor’s house between Sunday services. Torry would read his funny stories about what happened at the cabin that week and Aiken would encourage him between fits of laughter.

“He’s the one who said,’ I really think that if you could put spiritual applications on some of these stories, they would have spiritual values,” Martin said. “Now I travel the nation telling stories about this little cabin in Bear Valley and this little church in Eagle River. God works in mysterious ways.”

Mysterious ways indeed. After learning about a national competition to discover Christian performers, Pastor Jack Aiken took a collection to send Torry to compete. Aiken was convinced that Torry should still be performing but that this time he should be using his talents for the Lord. This annual contest now sponsored by the Gospel Music Association (formerly sponsored by Christian Artists) is called Seminar in the Rockies and it’s where several Christian performers have gotten their start including Keith Green and Mark Lowry. So off he went to Colorado Springs, with the red beard and long hair in his Carhardtt overalls to enter the drama contest. To his surprise he won the grand prize and was asked to perform on the last night of the conference in front of an audience that was so packed it became standing room only. “ Michael W. Smith, Sandi Patti and 4 Him were performing that night and I could hardly believe that I was going to be getting up on the same stage where they had just been.” When it was his turn to perform the musical group Point of Grace introduced him to the audience. “It was a little overwhelming to say the least,” he recalls. At the end of his performance he received a standing ovation, “I think they were just really glad that my performance was over,” Torry says with a grin.

After winning the award however, Torry was still hesitant to step into the field of Christian entertainment. “I was happy in my cabin studying the Bible. I didn’t need anything else.”

“ Of course one of the other main reasons that I didn’t immediately pursue a career is that I was scared,” he said. “I knew that I wanted to use my talents for God but I also knew where I came from. I rolled around in a lot of sin before I became a Christian so I was convinced that God couldn’t use someone with a damaged past like mine.”

One of his judges for the contest saw things differently however. A lady named Martha Bolton quickly welcomed him into the family of God and encouraged him to consider working in the Christian entertainment industry. After a few months of friendship she began to serve as his mentor. Martha is the well-known writer of “The Cafeteria Lady” column for Focus on the Family’s Brio Magazine for Girls. She is also the author of over fifty Christian books and was the first female staff writer for the famous comedian Bob Hope. She has received an Emmy nomination for her work and has won several awards for her writing. Torry was thrilled to have met her and even more thrilled to be mentored by her, but what thrills him the most is that their close friendship continues today.

“Martha encouraged me to compete again at the next years seminar and since part of winning the grand prize my first year was a free trip back I thought, what the heck, I might as well.” This time he competed in the writing category where he entered three comedy sketches. Each entrant is allowed to enter three manuscripts anonymously where a team of publishers, actors and authors then judges them. The winner’s name is revealed at the closing award ceremony at the end of the week.

Torry remembers being in his room at the YMCA on the seminar grounds when he prayed a prayer that consisted of asking God to confirm that He wanted to use him in spite of his past by allowing him to win third place in the sketchwriting. “It was my fleece before the Lord,” he informed me, and it seems to have worked. He not only won the third prize but also swept the category competing against numerous other entrants by winning the second prize, first prize and the Grand Prize as well. Torry was stunned that each one of his three entered sketches received an award and related his feeling about winning by saying, “I was so shocked I could hardly breathe. I probably could have still eaten something though. That’s never a problem. But the breathing? Boy, that was difficult.”

Immediately following the ceremony he was approached by a publisher who wanted to print his material and asked if Torry had enough for a book, which coincidentally he did. “All those winter’s in that cold cabin freezing to death and writing to stay warm while keeping myself entertained suddenly started to make sense,” he informed me. Torry Martin is now the award winning author of 5 Christian books called “Under the Circumstances,” “What a Character,” “Gimme Five,” and “All the Best,” all published by Lillenas Drama Publishing, the nations number one publisher of Christian drama material. These books are available for purchase at Christian bookstores nation wide. Torry is right now hard at work on a fifth book that he is co-authoring with Martha Bolton, humorously entitled “The Gospel According to Us”. Ironically enough before Torry had ever met Martha Bolton he was already a huge fan of her work and the first Christian sketch he ever performed in church was actually written by her.

Martha is the person Torry thanks for taking his already humorous stories about his life in Alaska and turning them into stage worthy material. “She’s a true comedy doctor and can take something funny and make it downright hysterical. You cannot go wrong when you have her on your team,” he said obviously proud of his friend and mentor.

When it comes to his own comedy sketchwriting Martin claims that a large source of inspiration for his material can be found in the people around him. He says, “I write about things that I witness in church or observe in the grocery store. The funny little things that no one thinks anyone else will notice are the very things I exaggerate and turn into humor for my characters.”

Torry also receives inspiration from Pastor Tom Sterbens of new Hope Church in Sevierville where he currently attends services. “Pastor Sterbens is an amazingly gifted speaker,’ he said, “ and he has a way of mixing humor into his thought-provoking sermons. In fact he’s given some of the best sermons I’ve ever heard. How could I not be inspired?”

Martin still has troubles considering himself an author however and he feels undeserving of the title since he has never received any formal education in writing. “I kinda feel like I’m fooling everyone or something and that one day they are all gonna discover that I’m not really a writer at all but that I’m just a hippie with a keyboard instead,” he said.

For not being a writer however he sure spends a lot of time working at it. In addition to his books he is also now doing some freelance writing for a show called “Adventures in Odyssey” which is produced by Focus on the Family. Torry created the popular character of Wooton Bassett for the national program and he says the character inspiration came to him easily. “Wooton’s a bizarre, bumbling, gullible and naïve type guy who has long red hair, a beard and a pretty round tummy,” he said, “ he also moved into the fictional town of Odyssey after living in a cabin in Alaska.”
I wonder where he got the idea?

Martin has now written several episodes for the program and they will be taping a new episode of his this December. Adventures in Odyssey has been on the air for over fifteen years and just recently celebrated their 500th episode. The program is also available on tape or CD at any Christian bookstore nation wide. Check with your local Christian radio station for the airtime in your area.

In addition to his books and work for Odyssey he is also the author of a monthly humor column called “Adventures in Oddities” for ‘On Course Magazine’, a national periodical for Christian teens. Currently Torry is also hard at work on developing a new program for a Christian network in New York and said that the project was consuming a large part of his time. His normal routine consists of writing during the week then traveling the nation to perform on weekends. It’s the performing of his comedy with a lesson, though, that Martin says is his favorite thing to do. His busy calendar and the favorable audience responses certainly seem to verify his gifting. Paul McCusker, an author and executive producer of Adventures in Odyssey for Focus on the Family describes Martin’s comedy by saying, “Torry Martin’s style of home-spun humorous ‘parables’ are sure to entertain and touch the hearts of church-people everywhere. Take Garrison Keillor and put a spiritual perspective to him and you have Torry Martin.”

Martin also stays busy by speaking and teaching comedy and sketchwriting at a variety of functions for Christian teens as well as at Christian writing conferences across the U.S. He’s amazed at the direction his life has taken and credits God alone for taking him from being a happy hermit and changing him into a sanctified hippie for the Holy One. Although he is shy off stage and thinks of himself as being socially handicapped, he is a man with a big heart, a great laugh and a sincere love for the Lord. Torry said that the main message he wants to convey with all of his work is that God loves us, that He wants to be in relationship with us, and that He can still use us in spite of our past. It is a blessing for us that this talented writer and comedian has discovered for himself that all of these things he considers important have been proven in his life to be true.

For more information on Torry’s ministry or to find out how to book him for a speaking or comedy engagement, you can visit his website at www.torrymartin.com or all him at (931) 935-0935.

by Wilma Banner Curtis

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