‘Family Camp’ film romp has San Diego connection
When Mark Christopher Lawrence was a kid, two evangelist preachers told him God was going to call him someday, and he needed to be ready.
Little did he suspect that one of those callings would find him playing a pastor in a feature film comedy. He modeled his character — “funny, engaging and powerful” — after one of those preachers.
Filming “Family Camp,” which debuted in theaters last month, kept Lawrence occupied during a portion of the pandemic that sidelined many of his acting colleagues.
“Family Camp,” starring The Skit Guys Christian video duo Tommy Woodard and Eddie James, was the last audition he had in March 2020 before COVID-19 restrictions were implemented. Days later, most other scheduled performances and tours were canceled.
Nevertheless, “Family Camp” went forward amid daily temperature checks and COVID tests every four days.
He also continued work on a second film and taping for the TV series “All the Queen’s Men” at Tyler Perry’s studio, where crew and actors were isolated in a protective bubble that minimized interaction with each other and the outside world.
Lawrence is a familiar face around San Diego to fans of theater and stand-up comedy.
He has made the rounds at the local comedy clubs — The American Comedy Co., The Comedy Store in La Jolla, Laugh Factor, Mad House Comedy Club and Mic Drop Comedy.
Since 2008, he has hosted a live monthly “Tuesday Night Comics” show of stand-up comedians at the North Coast Repertory Theatre in Solana Beach.
“My act comes directly out of my life. I think of every story positively or negatively, and then I tell that story . ... I’m a storyteller,” he says.
“I try to take people away from the daily grind of constant bombardment of politics and commercialism and give them a chance to say, ‘Oh, I can relate to that. My life is not that bad.’ They can stop thinking about when the bills are going to be paid.”
Some comics have complained about the restraints of staying inbounds in today’s politically correct, socially sensitive era. Not Lawrence, who is Black. He’s not deterred. “I write about me. If someone has a problem, it’s all about me . ... life’s too short.”
His philosophy is so successful he nearly once killed someone with laughter at a private charity event in La Jolla.
A few minutes into his spiel, someone rushed to the stage and asked if there was a doctor in the audience. An attendee had slumped over, unconscious, at his dinner table.
As luck had it, there were four doctors. Lawrence later was informed by one of the man’s tablemates that, when he regained consciousness, he was still giggling. While not funny at the time, Lawrence can muse now about almost doing someone in with laughter.
Born in 1964, Lawrence grew up in Compton with his single mom. He excelled in high school sports, became a student government leader and a champion debater and attended the University of Southern
under a law that provides a longer statute of limitations in certain circumstances. Stephan said in a statement that there were other “victims in this case whose abuse was beyond the statute of limitations.”
In March, six former students sued Christian Youth Theater, alleging that the organization’s founders and longtime leaders ignored, dismissed and covered
up sexual abuse by several employees for more than two decades.
The lawsuit contains specific abuse allegations against three former Christian Youth Theater employees, and it contends that at least six adults employed by the organization sexually abused at least 10 children between 1991 and 2011.
The plaintiffs contend that Christian Youth Theater’s culture “normalized grooming behaviors in which adults were able to target children, gain their
trust, and slowly and incrementally push the boundaries further to the point of sexual abuse.”
They also claim that the El Cajon couple who founded Christian Youth Theater in 1981, and grew it into one of the nation’s largest youth theater organizations, knew about the abuse as early as 1992 yet failed to act.