Former “Bachelor” Ben Higgins was in town over the weekend, but the Warsaw Community High School graduate wasn’t just visiting families and friends – he also was volunteering his time with two local groups. On Friday night, Higgins and his fiancee, Lauren Bushnell, who he met on ABC’s “The Bachelor,” were at the Baker Youth Club fundraiser dinner. Then Saturday night, he was one of the celebrity guest participants in Center Street Community Theatre’s Off The Wagon comedy night, while Bushnell enjoyed the 2-1/2-hour event from the seats. “I think Lauren and I both – even though Lauren never lived here, even though we live in Denver (Colo.) now – we both consider Warsaw a piece of us. Just like she considers Portland (Ore.) a piece of her. She knows that Warsaw means a lot to me. So the ability to come back and on one weekend be a part of so many things that involve the community, it is really just truly an honor for me and Lauren. It’s fun to be a part of the community,” Higgins said in an interview before the comedy night Saturday. He said he has worked on his jokes for the last year around Bushnell, but thinks he’s only elicited two laughs out of her. “So I’m not doing great, but tonight I hope to do a little better. I hope. So if you can, laugh no matter what,” he joked. “He’s pretty funny. I think he’s funniest when he doesn’t try to be funny,” Bushnell said. “Meaning she thinks I’m funniest when she can just laugh at me. That’s what she’s saying,” Higgins said, getting a laugh out of Bushnell. He said he was asked to participate in the comedy show through Tara Akers, who is a part of CSCT. “She emailed me. She’s a family friend. And she just asked, and it worked where we were going to be home. And I thought, ‘If we were going to be home, it sounds like a fun way to be a part of the community and, yeah, why not?’” Higgins said. Bushnell said she was just going to do her part and laugh really loudly. “I’m going to try and get her out there somehow, someway,” Higgins teased. “No, it’s not going to happen,” Bushnell replied. She didn’t end up on the Wagon Wheel stage, but afterward she gave Higgins an “A” for his performance. The other three celebrity guests who participated in the comedy night were Mayor Joe Thallemer, Grace College professor Mike Yocum and Kosciusko County Community Foundation Executive Director Suzie Light. Light said she was asked to participate through a “lovely email from one of the Community Theatre people, Madisson (Heinl), who is a Grace College grad and is working in our community. She asked, and I said, of course, because community theater is an important part of our community.” The guests were kind of told what they would be doing, Light said, but at rehearsal they found out they would be doing something different. But she said that was OK as she was willing to be flexible. It’s not the first time Light has done something like this. “Jennifer Shepherd is very good about asking people who have a hard time saying no to things, so I was in a murder mystery that the Wagon Wheel Community Theatre did a couple of years ago. It was a lot of fun. And this is going to be really very interesting and fun because it’s a lot of different quick skits. So the mayor and I are going to do something like ‘Two Truths and a Lie,’” Light explained before the show. Light and Thallemer played “Two Truths and a Lie” after intermission with Off The Wagon co-organizer Eric Totheroh. Light’s truth was that she was interviewed by USA Today about six years ago, while the mayor’s lie was that he got an autograph from Higgins. After everyone asked for Thallemer to reveal his truth hidden in the unopened envelope, he revealed that when he needs a little break from things, there was nothing like the television show “Toddlers & Tiaras.” It drew lots of laughter from the hundreds of people at the show. Higgins and Yocum earlier played a game where they had to decipher whether or not the other person was correctly describing an object they pulled out of a box or not. Higgins won the game, but Yocum got the majority of the laughs. The show started out with Totheroh and Heinl singing a song about Warsaw being “Nearly Stellar.” There was a skit about the Zimmer Biomet merger and two skits where one actor memorized lines and the other actor improvised everything. Between skits, there were dramatic readings of Speak Out from The Paper that had the audience laughing from not only what the opinion was about, but also the way the actors delivered them. The night ended with an improvised murder mystery. After intermission, CSCT Leadership Team member Jennifer Shepherd explained that CSCT started about three years ago and is part of the Wagon Wheel family. If anyone was interested in joining CSCT, she said it has a Facebook page they can like, or contact them via email at cscommunitytheatre@wagonwheeltheatre.com. After the event, co-organizer Heinl said, “It went really well. We had a huge crowd, bigger than we had for any one show ever before. All the people who were involved – the special guests, the community theater actors – did a spectacular show and really showcased what we’re all about.” She said the audience really enjoyed seeing the local featured guests. As for the CSCT doing the show again, Heinl said, “We’ll see. That is to be determined.” The other co-organizer, Totheroh, said the comedy night was “overwhelmingly successful.” “I’m so happy with the way it turned out and the people who came out and just the support from the community was awesome,”?he said. He said everyone seemed to enjoy themselves, and that’s what it was all about. “I hope this continues. I think it was a different thing for the community and I’d love to see it keep going,” Totheroh said. Along with the co-organizers, the other CSCT members participating in Off The Wagon were Tanor Joy, Dan Kuhn, Julie Kuhn, Gerald Cox, Rebecca Crimm, Katie Anders, Joe Harmon, Trevor Jaynes, Emilie Judy, Jay Rigdon and Melissa Jordan. Bob Jarboe provided keyboard accompaniment.
