About "Mister Rogers & Me"

I was sitting with Mister Rogers in the candle light of my thirty-first birthday cake. Outside, a thunderstorm was blowing through Nantucket. I told him that I often thought about our conversation the summer prior during which he said to me, "I feel so strongly that deep and simple is far more essential than shallow and complex." His message stuck with me, I said.

"Spread the message," Mister Rogers told me. "Spread the message."

Three years later, I continue to spread the message.

My essay, “Mister Rogers & Me,” is a permanent installation on my website, www.benjaminwagner.com.

My short story, “Meet Mister Rogers,” was published in Little, Browne and Co’s “To DO Before I Die.”

The potential release of our independent documentary, “Mister Rogers & Me," is intended to grow the message’s reach exponentially.

“Mister Rogers & Me” is a story of personal inspiration and discovery, a hero's quest that begins on an Nantucket summer afternoon’s we spent together in 2001, then sets out on America's highways and skyways to understand the basis for and manifestations of “deep and simple" from some of media's strongest voices.

While we're been planning the film since 2004, and began shooting Nantcuket b-roll last fall, production began in earnest this month. Our itinerary is expected to include Latrobe, PA (Mister Rogers’ birthplace), Pittsburgh, PA (Family Communications, WQED), Washington, DC (The Smithsonian, NPR, NBC), Durham, NC (Bo Lozoff’s Human Kindness Foundation), New York City (Linda Ellerbee, Marc Brown), and back to Nantucket (photographer Beverly Hall).

“Mister Rogers & Me” is written, shot, directed by edited by Benjamin and Christofer Wagner.