Palm Sunday has come and gone and therein lies the tale. This marks my second year as a participant in the annual Passion Play, a depiction of different Gospel versions of the events leading up to Christ's crucifixion and death ( Read more... )

It turns out that one of the oldest members of St. Michael's was making the loudest noise in the procession from the park to the street outside and into the main sanctuary, leading the children like a pied piper around once and then through the center aisle. The pews filled p quickly and I had to go back to my seat in The Little Chapel just to make ( Read more... )

It hasn't taken me very long to figure out that there are all sorts of ways of playing Jesus. People own Him. Literally. And, it wasn't long before I figured out that that even within the fairly modest confines of St. Michael's there are vast differences between the pieces that different people own. Crosby may have said it best at his farewell ( Read more... )

Holy Week got off to a rollicking good start yesterday with the conclusion of the Passion Play. Raddad has an absolute genius for visualizing what he wants from his players as well as the physical surroundings he has to work with and building everyone's confidence until they deliver. It was a very happy process. Someone asked me during Coffee Hour ( Read more... )

Saturday morning's rehearsal went well. I could see Deborah taking a position at the back of the sanctuary where she was obviously trying to gauge whether our troupe could be heard. Raddad resumed where we had left off Wednesday night, just before Judas's kiss. For me, it meant reciting Jesus' prayer several times in order to introduce the "tableau ( Read more... )

Had a lot of fun Wednesday night after Compline. It was the first chance I've had a chance to rehearse with the full ensemble cast of the Passion Play and at the actual venue. Raddad was very much in his element, hopping around the stone steps leading to the old choir pews, on crutches. At one point, he missed a step climbing down from the pulpit ( Read more... )

Spent part of the afternoon yesterday blocking out the scenes in the Passion Play with Raddad. This was after washing silverware for Altar Guild. For some reason, there was a lot of consecrated wine left after Mass and very few people who wanted to consume it. The Vestry money-counters who could reliably be counted on most days to imbibe a little, ( Read more... )

Memorizing the lines to St. Luke's Gospel was proving more difficult than I had supposed it might. The dialogue is stilted, redundant and does not read as though it was intended as dialogue. Shakespearean dialogue, by contrast, is much more poetic and trips off the tongue. Your mouth muscles want to repeat the experience of saying them over and ( Read more... )