Essays & articles

I find costuming to be more enjoyable than regular sewing. As I am also a playwright, I go for what is noticeable from a distance. This means that upon any stage colors need to be attractively arranged. The costumes need to be fitted but not always tailored. Some actors will demand a close fit and you will need to have some knowledge of tailoring. As a rule, the audience will not be aware of such details but always appreciative of a beautiful costume. With our modern glitz and glimmer materials, be sure you know how they look under different colored lights to maintain your color coordination. Don't use a garment or accessory just because it is your favorite: read the play and decide what will best enhance the players and the theme. A mix of styles reminds me of a circus, and worse, a costume party. People are in a theatre to gain a new perspective or be nicely entertained: if they wanted something else, they would have paid for it!

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Regarding your question about drama a teaching tool in the church : Yes, I think there is a place for that. Drama is a very flexible as well as powerful medium and God used it many times in the Bible to teach a lesson (eg, the burning bush, the antics of Jeremiah, etc). But as you say, we need to keep clear what the end purpose is and should not confuse teaching with other forms of drama. I was going to say "not confuse teaching with theatre", but then remembered the miracle plays of mediaeval times, which had a strong teaching component, because the peasants could not read or write, so drama (and the icons of the church, such as stained glass windows) were the principal form of instruction in the faith. But in those days, secular theatre such as we know it did not exist - drama was found only in a church context. But over time, it became very corrupt and fell out of favour, and the church has struggled ever since to accept it. (There is a brilliant essay on this written by an American women - a university professor - which is linked from the Dramatix site.) In many ways I would love to see the miracle plays revived (of course, the people of Oberammegau would say they never died), and in this I was hugely inspired by the movie "Rosencrantz and Gildenstern are Dead" (Tom Stoppard, who also wrote the screenplay for Shakespeare in Love). If you haven't seen the movie, get a copy of the video. It's brilliant - far better on film than the play itself reads. Incidentally, while I think of it, you can't do better in the learning department than borrowing play scripts from your local library and reading them. They are generally surprisingly good reading, and usually have the benefit of being consumable in one sitting. If you want a good one to start with, hunt out "The Lady's not for Burning" by Christopher Fry. After that try "A Man for All Seasons". (Shakespeare is not the only playwright with good scripts, and it's good to ease yourself in through something a bit more accessible.) "The Bear" by Chekhov is a nice lightweight classic comedy, in one act (you'll read it in 15 minutes). And a good translation of Moliere's "The Bourgeois Gentleman" is fun. Not to mention George Bernard Shaw and Oscar Wilde. (You can skip Shaw's introductions though - he preaches a right old sermon on how to change the world for umpteen pages, and it usually has little to do with the plot.)

This is just about the hardest question to answer in the world of Christian drama. It is not made any easier by the fact that different countries have different perspectives and approaches. For instance – and this is a big generalisation – in England, subtlety, open-ended conclusions and a certain surrealistic element in humour work well, whereas Americans are more direct, like finite endings, and tend more towards slapstick in their humour. I am a New Zealander, and because our literature and films have been drawn more or less equally from both England and America, we understand and enjoy both. Monty Python is as popular as Home Improvement.

Register your work with the U.S. Copyright Office. Copyright registration serves as proof of authorship. It is also necessary if you take legal action for copyright infringement. In addition, U.S. Copyright Office registration lasts for 50 years and is renewable for 25 more years. Other registration services such as the Writer's Guild of America provide only proof of authorship, and require you to renew within five years. So whether you use other services or not, you should always officially register your work with the U.S. Copyright Office.

The U.S. Copyright Office currently requires 3 things to register a work:

A clean, single-sided, unbound copy of the work.

A correctly completed form PA, with necessary spaces filled in and signed in space 8.

A check or money order for US $20.00, made out to the Register of Copyrights.

The materials should be mailed to:

Register of Copyrights
U.S. Copyright Office
Washington DC, 20559

You should send your registration materials by certified mail. Keep a copy of the filled-in form, your work and the certified mail receipts. If the materials are in order, the Copyright Office will send you a confirmation in the mail several weeks later. Registration is valid from the date the Copyright Office receives your materials.

U.S. Copyright Office Form PA is for registering dramatic works (plays, screenplays). It is available from the U.S. Copyright Office and from the Office's web site in Acrobat (.pdf) versions. The Copyright Office accepts photocopies of Form PA, but may not accept non-standard size or dot-matrix printouts.

Dear John

My name is Grace and I am planning on doing a monologue that requires me to end the piece by committing suicide. I don’t actually say I’m committing suicide but it’s supposed to be obvious to the audience that that's what I do. Do you have any idea how I would do this? Thanks a million, Grace.

Playback Theatre is an improvisational performance-art form based on true stories told by the audience. The stories are then brought to life by a team of actors, a conductor (facilitator), and a musician. Watching one's story acted out on stage in front of an audience is an exhilirating, entertaining, and transformational experience. It raises personal awareness as well as builds compassion and communication within a community.

How can you do drama when you don't have a drama team?

That was the puzzle facing us when what had been a very strong drama team (more than 20 people at its peak) at my home church suddenly folded some years ago. The leader moved to another town, and most of the good actors also either moved or found other ministries they wished to be involved in. For two years we had almost no drama input, apart from an occasional Easter or Christmas event.

In which the author explodes a few myths, and explains a simple (and cheap) method to protect copyright.

Actually, the title is a misnomer. Everything is copyright the moment it dribbles off your pen or printer. As long as it is your original work, the copyright automatically and immediately becomes yours. You can sell the reproduction rights, but no-one can take the copyright from you. The work does not have to carry the Copyright symbol ©, or even the word "Copyright", in order to be copyright.

In recent years, dramas which have come to be tagged "slice-of-life" have become popular in many churches.

These are short plays which generally deal with current issues. Frequently, they present an issue with no resolution to the story line. They often make no mention of God, or Christianity. So what place do they have in church?

This style of drama has been developed in conjunction with what are sometimes known as "seeker-sensitive" services : services which are aimed at people who do not have a church background. The services may feature contemporary music, use of multi-media, dance, drama, and messages on topical issues. In this style of service, the drama is usually presented in conjunction with the message, often to highlight an issue or raise a question which the message then answers. Because the message is effectively an extension of the drama, the play does not need to have a resolution (which might be contrived or difficult to convey within the constraints of the situation).

The use of the term "drama" is generic. They are certainly not all serious; many are humorous, and may also use mime, dance and music. But whatever the vehicle, ultimately they aim to show that Jesus, the Bible and Christianity is very relevant to today.

One church which has pioneered the use of "slice-of-life" dramas is Willow Creek, near Chicago. (A catalogue of Willow Creek dramas can be found at www.willowcreek.org) Many of the scripts at the Dramatix site which you are currently visiting have been developed for Spreydon Baptist Church, Christchurch, New Zealand, which incorporates them into a "seeker-friendly" service on Sunday nights.

If you would like to ask further questions regarding this aspect of drama, feel free to email John McNeil at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

If you’re thinking about starting a drama ministry in your church, this may be helpful to you.

Whether you’re curious about starting a drama ministry in your church, or already have one going, I’m sure the question will arise, “Why do Drama?” Well, the answer is really quite simple. In fact you should be able to answer the question yourself right after taking a look at these next few paragraphs. But before you begin to answer this question, you need to know the basics. You need to know the history of theatre, the technicality of theatre, and especially, the effects of theatre.

The original Essays & Articles page was an index of links to drama resources elsewhere on the web. Most of those sites have since closed: of the 64 external links it carried, two still lead to what they described.

• What Is Readers Theatre? – Aaron Shepard’s introduction to the form, and the rest of his Readers Theatre pages.
• Arts on the Move – drama teaching resources for schools.