From left: David Lynch Foundation CEO Bob Roth; X-Men star Hugh Jackman and his wife Deborra-Lee Furness Jackman; and Lynch himself. (Photo courtesy of The David Lynch Foundation)
It’s not often that Jerry Seinfeld, Jay Leno, Hugh Jackman, Margaret Cho, Katie Couric, Kesha and Ben Folds are in the same room together—much less in Washington D.C. But they’re just some of the luminaries who will gather at the Kennedy Center Concert Hall on Monday for the first-annual National Night of Laughter and Song.
The cavalcade of live performances doubles as a fundraiser for the David Lynch Foundation, a non-profit founded by the co-creator of the beloved —and recently revived— TV series Twin Peaks. The organization seeks to connect underprivileged populations to transcendental meditation and other stress management options.
Jackman and his wife Deborra-Lee Furness Jackman will emcee the program, which includes stand-up from Seinfeld, Leno, and Cho, and music by Folds (who was recently named the National Symphony Orchestra’s new artistic advisor) and Kesha, along with Angelique Kidjo and Sharon Isbin.
The foundation opened its first D.C. location on Capitol Hill in January. Proceeds from Monday’s event will go towards providing meditation classes for 10,000 at-risk adults and youth in the D.C. area in partnership with veteran service organizations, after-school clubs, women’s centers, correctional institutions, homeless shelters, and Town Hall Education Arts Recreation Campus in Southeast.
Given the city’s high-stress professional environment, it’s little surprise that meditation is in high demand in D.C., and has been on the upswing in recent years, according to the foundation’s CEO Bob Roth. The organization sees now as the perfect time to put down roots here, after years of offering more sporadic meditation services in the area. Particular attention will be paid to veterans and children in low-income households, where meditation can offer relief and instill vigor, according to Roth.
Sometimes people tell Roth, ‘You’re teaching these inner city kids to meditate, that’s just like putting them to sleep’ That’s not what TM does. It wakes up the mind, gives these kids the energy and the wherewithal to rise above and to improve their living conditions. This isn’t a pacifier. This is an energizer.”
Transcendental meditation began as a movement in mid-1950s India. Though some debate exists over whether it’s a religious ritual or not, its users agree that spending 15 to 20 minutes per day repeating a silent mantra can make a significant difference in the rest of their daily lives.
Casual fans of Lynch, whose surreal filmography is beloved among a certain type of film buff, might be surprised to learn that his extracurricular interests include heading up a foundation that helps people relax their minds—based on his artistic output, his own mind seems to be in perpetual motion. But the practice is nothing new for Lynch, who was first “inducted” into transcendental meditation in the mid-1970s and opened the foundation in 2005. And this isn’t the first time Lynch has brought a TM program to Washington.
Though the foundation largely focuses on broad charitable work, Roth has offered meditation classes to a wide range of celebrity clients over the years. The list reads like a who’s who of Hollywood’s elite: Martin Scorsese, Jerry Seinfeld, Oprah Winfrey, Ellen DeGeneres, Cameron Diaz, Russell Brand, Hugh Jackman, Gwyneth Paltrow Arianna Huffington, David Letterman, Katy Perry. To Roth, though, a celebrity is just another student that wants to find balance in her or his complex life.
“I give the exact same course to a veteran at the Walter Reed hospital as I would to a business executive at a real estate development firm in Bethesda,” Roth says.
Roth says he tends to win over skeptical students with his own transcendental meditation origin story. He was a stressed-out college student with no interest in “New Age things” when his best friend suggested he try transcendental meditation. The concept didn’t interest him much, but he trusted his friend enough to give it a try, almost on a whim. It won him over quickly.
“You don’t have to believe in TM,” Roth says. “It works just like gravity works or electricity works.”
Though he was raised in California, Roth was born in D.C. and returned to the nation’s capital to work for Senator Robert Kennedy’s presidential campaign. But the work disillusioned him, and he eventually realized that for him, there are more productive avenues to help people.
“Politics is great, I follow it, but it was never going to be my profession,” Roth says. “It was too divisive. Politics is not going to heal the nation.”
That said, anyone is welcome to request a session with Roth — even President Trump, who Roth thinks could benefit from meditation.
“This would help with his sleep. It would make him more resilient, and just healthier,” Roth says. “If you can reduce the stress of any human being, it’s going to make them more balanced, clearer, healthier — whether it’s the president, a senator, a woman who’s at a homeless shelter, or the CEO of a company in Alexandria. It can only help.”
David Lynch Foundation Presents A Night of Laughter and Song will take place in the Kennedy Center Concert Hall at 8 p.m. on Monday. Tickets range from $69 to $149 and are available on the venue’s website.