The experience of having theatre in one’s church is unique. It not only provides a visceral engagement for the congregation of sermons starters, but also gives opportunity for social engagement and community outreach.
Researchers in the field have explored these benefits and discovered that, ‘Theatre has the ability to communicate multiple streams of content on multiple levels (intellectual, emotional, kinesthetic)’ (Savidge, 2009, pg.10). However, theatre in the church is often only used for special occasions such as Easter, Advent, and Christmas. If drama in the church is believed to be an effective way of engaging congregation, it could be asked why it is not used more regularly as a part of the sermons. And second, if it did become an integral part of the ministry, how important would it be to develop a good model and an effective leadership team to run it?
People in the church do not realize the true power of using drama as a part of the ministry. In order for the church to use drama more regularly in the church, they need to realize the true potential of this ministry and what it can bring to a congregation. The way parishes sees drama in the church, it has differs into two groups, the ones that see drama as an effective tool to touch peoples’ hearts and the ones that thinks drama in the church is more for entertainment purposes and anything that is entertainment is not allowed in church as it is not godly.
Steve Pederson’s book, Drama Ministry (1999) has few practical answers to address this issue. In his first chapter “The Power of Drama” (p.15) he stated, “The problem for some who oppose the use of drama in the church is the idea that drama is merely ‘entertainment’.” However, “a good drama can bring out wholeso...
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...istry in a church is needed but to prevent the newly creative team to fade away, there’s a need of community gathering, not just discussing about rehearsal but basically asking about “what do you feel about last night presentation?” or just sit on the floor together with a candle and discussing about a bible verses that each individual of the team just read on that day.
Works Cited
Dale Savidge, Performing the Sacred, 2009, USA
Steve Pederson, Drama Ministry, 1999, USA
Alison Siewert, Drama Team Handbook, 2003, USA
"If We Shadows Have Offended: Towards A Worship Theology For Drama in The Church" by Dale Harris, 2007 - Journal
"Church Drama And Conservative Christianity: Developing A Drama Ministry At Broadway Church of Christ" by Laurie. L. Doyle, BA.MM, 2002 - Dissertation
Butler, Judith. "Performative Acts and Gender Constitution: An Essay in Phenomenology and Feminist Theory." Theatre Journal 40.4 (1988): 519-31. The Johns Hopkins University Press. Web. 11 May 2011.
Olive, David. "Possibilities of Performance: New Ways of Teaching Dramatic Literature." Links & Letters 2 (1995): 9-17. UAB Digital Repository of Documents. Web. 30 Mar. 2012.
Drama, and Writing. Ed. X.J. Kennedy and Dana Gioia. 6th ed. New York: Pearson-Prentice, 2010. 40-49. Print.
In an age when culture continues to lower standards of intellect, Marva Dawn makes compelling observations and suggestions for the Church to rethink its strategy on impacting society. How do we evangelize without weakening the message of what we are communicating? The majority of her text focuses on the worship environment generally, but later she focuses on music, preaching, and liturgy specifically. According to Dawn, a gathering of believers should emphasize God as the subject and object of worship, challenge each individual to grow in godly character, and accentuate the community of believers (not only in the room, but throughout history as well). Through this grid, she encourages leaders and participants to evaluate each worship element.
intended to help reinforce the importance of God and religion people's lives (Everyman). The play
“Theatre is like a gym for the empathy. It’s where we can go to build up the muscles of compassion, to practice listening and understanding and engaging with people that are not just like ourselves. We practice sitting down, paying attention and learning from other people’s actions. We practice caring.” (Bill English of the SF Playhouse). This quote accurately summarises the purpose of Children’s Theatre, to help the growth and understanding of children whilst also keeping them entertained through theatrical techniques. The National Theatre’s Cat in the Hat, along with our performance pieces of Cranky Bear and Possum Magic all showcased these techniques in a number of ways, whilst also subconsciously coinciding with the child development theories
During the mid 14th century, the black plague was running rampant. The church, being a state of God, did not know how to cure these people, causing those who came to them in need, asking why God was killing their family and friends, to become disillusioned. This caused many to turn away from the church, and look inwards instead, leading to the hugely influencial humanist movement. It was through these changes within their society that theatre was able to change and blossom into an act of freedom, a means in which society and state could be critiqued, a way to bring their viewers some escape from their hard laberous
Martin Esslin, an established drama director, scholar, and critic, approaches his analysis of drama by drawing on his practical experience as a director of plays. Esslin implicitly assumes that drama is the most elite of the artistic genres when he directly declares the purpose of his book, which is to answer the question "why should those concerned with art resort to drama rather than any other form of communication?" Esslin then immediately poses another question that he seems to take as a prerequisite for the first question: "What is the underlying, basic nature of dramatic form and what is it that drama can express better than any other form of communication?"
what is drama to them. A good drama book has to attract the reader in such a way that the reader
Worthen, William B. Modern Drama and the Rhetoric of Theater. Berkeley: U of California P, 1992.
Drama according to the Wikipedia free encyclopedia is the specific mode of fiction represented in performance, which comes from a Greek word (drao) meaning action. A dramatic production depends mostly on in-depth development of realistic characters dealing with emotional themes, it put the characters in conflict with themselves, others, society and even natural phenomena. According to Learning Stream, “drama is a literary composition involving conflict, action crisis and atmosphere designed to be acted by characters on a stage before an audience.”
In this paper, I will be focusing briefly on my knowledge and understanding of the concept of Applied theatre and one of its theatre form, which is Theatre in Education. The term Applied Theatre is a broad range of dramatic activity carried out by a crowd of diverse bodies and groups.
Theatre first came about from all different cultures acting out part of their bible, or performing rituals to the Gods. It was not until the middle ages when dramatists wrote about all aspects of life. Theatre has therefore changed continuously to suit the demands of each new age for fantasy, spectacle, or serious drama.
The content of the morality plays is what played a hand in the persuasion of its audience. They taught their audiences because their main object was both religious and ethical and easy to grasp for the uneducated population whom largely went to its productions. (Warren 1). The plays also often examined the Christian character so that the flaws and strengths can be pointed out. (1). The plays were centered mainly on faith, dogma, and the application of the Christian doctrine to common folk life. (1). The characters of the morality plays were usually abstract qualities such as greed, friendship, love, death, etc. (1). There were many other cases when the characters of the morality plays were not abstract qualities. These alternative roles were ones of angels, devils, priests, doctors, fools (found usua...