The Saga Continues

Time for the weekend update already?! As hard as it is to believe, we have blown through (read: survived) another week of play practices with our sanity intact. As I type this, I am recovering from a typically brutal game of Ultimate Frisbee...Sam may be limping on and off the stage tomorrow. :)

Anyway. Our story left off last time with Deacon David telling the tale that would become KATB...and Sarah volunteering to write the script, and eventually direct the play. I'm going to have to gloss over many of the details of this part of the saga...partially because I don't want to put to many spoilers out there yet. So Sarah, I beg your forgiveness–I'm certainly not accusing this part of the story of being insignificant!!

To Sarah's credit, she knew (or at least seemed to know) exactly what she was getting herself into when she did volunteer. To say that the task of preparing the lengthy script for a performance was a monumental task would be a grandiose understatement. The process of writing the script was one wrought with challenges, not the least of which was fixing several anachronisms while remaining true to the original. This story could go on and on and on. Writing the script ended up being a project that spanned many months, and eventually heavily involved Casey (who eventually wrote most of scenes 2 and 3, and who is now our Lucy when she's not invisible. Long story.)

Once the script was finished, though, there was an even more important obstacle to overcome. Many kids weren't particularly crazy about the idea of acting in the play. The problem became getting the children to feel like The King and the Bride was THEIR play, one which they not only participated in, but owned. In a way, after all, the deeper message of KATB is the future of the children. Therefore, this "ownership" was an essential part of the original vision.

The solution was in the form of a remarkable brainstorm: A week-long drama camp at St. Peter's, a sort of Vacation Bible School with a special emphasis on the spectacular world of theatre. I really don't know who's idea it originally was (and I'm even going to venture that it doesn't really matter), but it quickly became a hugely diverse undertaking with a vast amount of participation from the whole church. In a way, the whole church owned VBS, just as we wanted the kids to own the play.

I think I'm not alone when I say that VBS was one of the highlights of the whole summer (obviously slightly overshadowed by Becca and Chris's wedding, YAY!!). It was a HUGE amount of fun. We did costuming, set designing, and a whole host of other amazingly wonderful stuff.

However, the real emphasis of VBS was improv acting. Improv turned out to be such a hit that we went ahead and did an all-improv warm-up show in the fall to get people out on stage and acting. VBS had so many far-ranging effects that I'm sure we haven't seen the end of them yet, and it proved to be another brilliant example of what happens when God-given visions just happen to mesh perfectly with each other.

Probably the greatest thing about VBS, though? Before the camp, almost none of the kids wanted to act. Afterwards, everybody wanted to act.

And just because it was so much fun, I went searching through my 13,000 photos to find some VBS pictures. Unfortunately, the ones I have are extremely limited; I know there's more somewhere, I just have to find them. Anyway, here they are.

Super Deacon (Deacon David) was the VERY VERY unofficial mascot of VBS. :)

Our eccentrically-dressed Director (normally not quite this eccentric) :

And our director with her stage manager Coach (Becca) :

And so another chapter closes. Another week, another round of practices, another game of Frisbee...and you'll hear about the next part, one I'm intimately involved with: WRITING THE MUSIC.

I'll see you then! (Unless music bores you to tears, which is not something I can help you with.)

–William