Top Tips for DramaPlay it by Ear

Top Tips for Church Drama

It’s that time of year again when you are looking for a new drama or monologue for the childrens day or parents night and you don’t know where to begin. Well let us help you out! With our very own drama company in house, it would be a shame not to avail of their talents and wisdom in this area. So here are a few hints and tips from Ross and Chris at Play it by Ear that might help as you prepare a drama with your group!

Experience it!

Drama is a great way to teach your group about the bible; they’ll learn by watching but also by doing so make sure you get them involved. We often find that by having people involved in a drama they become actively involved and invested in the story, bringing it to life and helping

their understanding of what’s going on in the bible. Why not try the following game which will help your group to gain a better understanding of how the characters in the bible might have been feeling?

Game: Line the participants up and ask them to walk to the other side of the room using the emotion that you call out eg. if you say happy, they might skip across the room while laughing but if you say angry, they might stomp across the room loudly. After using a few emotions, ask them to think about what the characters in the drama might have been feeling like and get them to walk across as that character. Eg. Daniel might have felt scared in the lion’s den. This is a simple way of bringing the characters to life and helping the group to relate to the story.

Get to the heart of the story

It’s really important that the actors know what the key message of the story is, it’ll help with their understanding of the drama and make it easier to remember. The following exercise might be useful to help them pick up on this key message.

Game: A freeze frame is a still frozen picture made up of people standing in a pose which tells us something of the story. Start by getting the group to think of their favourite part of the story or the bit they find most interesting/challenging; do a 3 second countdown and when you get to 1, the participants have to freeze in a picture which shows what their chosen part of the story is. You could then get the participants into groups so they can make a collective freeze frame of a particularpart of the story, with different individuals freezing as different characters. If working with kids then feel free to guide them as to what the key parts of the story are and ask them to make freeze frames of that, eg. Jesus on the cross.

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Top Tips for Church DramaRe-imagine the Story

It’s really important that we’re faithful to the biblical text; this is the word of God and we must honour the stories and what God is saying through them. God also created us to be creative and it can be helpful to re-imagine these stories and bring them to life in a modern/unusual context. By seeing or being part of a drama which brings the bible into a modern context, it can be easier for the group to relate to the story and therefore apply it to their own life situations.

Keep it Simple

If working with young children or even just a group that lacks confidence, it can be difficult to get them to remember lines and movements even if they’re not in front of a rather daunting audience.

As a result, it’s helpful to make the whole thing as simple as possible. We want them to have lots of fun and enjoy their experience of performing and engaging with the bible and to this end it can be really useful to tell an interactive story rather than have all the kids learn very specific words and movements. This also allows for quite a few participants to be used in a performance without a great deal of rehearsal. Below you will find an extract from our ‘Armour of God’ sketch which uses a couple of narrators who can read their lines from the page or can even be played by a leader and the rest is done by children who don’t have to learn a lot and simply have to follow some basic instructions.

Narrator 1: People spend a lot of time trying to protect themselves

Narrator 2: In lots of different ways

Narrator 3: Some people like to use helmets

A group of children run on from either side wearing helmets of some description. Maybe they hit each other on the head, enjoying the fact that it doesn't hurt

Narrator 4: Others like to use knee pads

Another group of children come on wearing knee pads, maybe they slide on their knees

Narrator 1: Some people try to make themselves seem really scary

A group of children come on and pull really scary faces

Narrator 2: So that they'll be protected from all the other scary things

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Top Tips for Church DramaChildren walk on in bear costumes. They're growling and looking scary but when they see the children with the scary faces, they run away

Narrator 3: Whilst other people protect themselves by hiding

Narrator 4: They think that if no one can see them then they'll be perfectly safe.

Some children hide under a sheet as the bears come back sniffing around; they could possibly hide under individual sheets and the bears could weave in and out between them. When the bears leave, they remove the sheet and say;

Children: Phew!

So there you have, just a couple of basic hints and tips that might help you get started with using drama in your local church or organisation.

If you have any more questions or for some advice and support, check out www.playitbyeardrama.com or contact Ross and Chris at playitbyeardrama@gmail.com.

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