Free Sample: "Voices of the Living Nativity"
About Voices of the Living Nativity
"Ugh! Not that same old play again." The secure, homecoming feel of tradition can also feel like a worn-out shirt.
Then there is that other bugaboo. Christmas comes at such a busy time who has time to do a good job with drama?
These may sound like excuses for not doing Christmas with drama, but we can also hear them as the challenge to billow the creative spark, and make it NEW/old worthy of our special holiday time.
Free Sample of Voices of the Living Nativity
This is a (memorized) reading of the Christmas Narrative from Luke, and Psalm 23.
This one is to joy the actors. In music it would be jazz but instead of a common key and individual variations this is common words -- the bible words that are memorized by the actors. The spontaneous variations develop within phrasing and sequencing.
Cast
Mary -- Luke 1:46b-55
Joseph -- Luke 2:1-7, 18-20
Angels -- Luke 1:35b, 2:10b-12, 14
Shepherds -- Psalm 23:4-6, Luke 2:15b
Sheep -- Psalm 23:1-3
If real sheep and animals are used, the shepherds would learn the sheep part too. The bleating and wrestlessness of live animals will enhance the spontaneity if they are available.
Staging
The staging is simple. The actors dressed in traditional biblical costumes take their places and there they stay. Mary and Joseph with a manger and baby are center stage. The angels, shepherds and sheep may be interspersed surrounding them. By mingling the angels, shepherds and sheep the choral parts can be more fluid and interesting. However they do not walk around or talk to one another as in a play. The actors may choose to stand or sit as it fits their delivery of the lines. They may choose to use business that fits their parts. Mary may pick up the baby, a shepherd may clutch his staff in fear. Whatever accomplishes the expressions within the words is for the actors to discover and use as their parts eb and flow together and apart.
How it Works
Here is how it works. One actor randomly says his/her speech -- the whole or just part of it, and another may add his/her lines as they seem to flow. The familiarity of these passages allows for the freedom to intersperse the lines in different sequences. The story won't be lost by changing the sequence. After all, a living nativity with no voice at all tells the story. The familiar words and phrases that mingle are more like spoken music repeating verses and choruses and mingling phrases. A chorus or echos may emerge because the same parts are learned by several actors. These lines may be said sometimes as solo and sometimes with the others in chorus.
It is alright to repeat passages.
It is alright to offer variations of inflection, volume and interpretation.
It is alright to leave silence.
It starts when it starts, and it ends when it ends.
