Christian Living

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(As it first appeared in FaithWriter's Magazine Acting Up! column February 2005)

Preparing Your Audience
By David Ian

I was helping a pastor with the drama program he had initiated for Sunday mornings. The purpose of his morning dramas was to introduce the sermon topic and to possibly provide some fodder for sermon references.

This is, perhaps, the most common first step in a regular theatre program in a church. The production values in the short dramas were very low-key, by design, as the pastor did not want to make his congregation think they were introducing something too slick into the service. Consequently, the writing was kept rather simplistic, the characterizations were either two-dimensional (or transparent, to my eye), and the acting was kept at a minimal skill level.

It wasn't that all those involved in the production were not capable of a more skilled level of theatrical "quality

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