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All our own work.We are posting this information, not in order to brag, but to solicit your prayers for the shows that we are writing ourselves.
We know that your prayer support is vital to our mission. Therefore we will provide news on these projects so that you will know if/when your prayers have been answered. Thankyou in advance.
"A Rock and a Hard Place"-- a provisional titleMike Thomas (Secretary) and Dennis Wildman (Chairman) are collaborating on a script for a new musical. As you might guess from the clever title, it is about the life of Simon Peter, "the rock" of the church. The story is told by himself, as a series of flash-backs. The work has progressed to the stage where we are able to publish a synopis, so we have set up a page for it in our repertore. As more information becomes available, it will be published there.
"Death in Time"-- a provisional titleDouglas presented the first draft of a new drama to the members during Summer 2001. It covers the last week or so of Jesus' life, from Palm Sunday to His resurrection. The story is told from the perspective of those around him ... both friends and enemies, and focusses almost exclusively on their experiences. The inspiration for this script came from reading a book called "Who Rolled the Stone?" by Frank Morrison. Said book played a part in bringing Douglas to faith during 1998, so it seemed fitting to "return the compliment" by loosely basing a play on it. The original intention was to write a script to which members could add their own songs, making a musical of about 60-90 minutes duration. Unfortunately, the first draft took about two hours to read. There was obviously too much material there for a normal Revelation musical. The committee asked the author to continue its development ... not as a musical, but as a full-length dramatic play. There are no plans yet regarding what Revelation might do with a full-length play. The author is seeking guidance, and your prayers on this (and all other matters on this page) would be appreciated.
"Names of God"-- a provisional titleRevelation started work during summer 2001 on creating our first revue-format show. The objective is to understand more about God's character as revealed particularly in His names that are recorded in the Old Testament. Paula Darrall (our worship leader) set the direction thus : "This will be one way of making sure that we know the God that we say we worship. It's easier to trust a person that you know." Part of the inspiration for this show came from a song by Ismael (a Christian singer & song-writer in the UK). He wrote a song called "Names of God", in which he lists the following extract of names from the OT ...
Members were asked to contribute songs, sketches, poems, etc, as inspired by a particular name, and drawn from their own experiences as Christians. Paula led the charge with a song based on the name of "El Shaddai" ( The God of more than enough; Many breasted One; Field of abundance ) . By May 2002, work had gone very well on the drama side of this project. We were amazed to find so much dramatic writing talent in our group. At the last count we had achieved eight draft scripts, and five (as yet) unworked concepts (& more may have been written since then). We felt we had enough drafts to go ahead with constructing a show. The beauty of writing our own show is flexibility: As more pieces are drafted, different versions of the show can be created for different tours, ... even different churches. Each version of the show could emphasise different aspects of our knowledge of God, or address different needs of each congregation. This level of creativity was nothing short of a miracle, when you consider that we all lead busy lives, and we were also taking another show round on tour at the same time (BQ2). We felt sure that God had been lending a hand, clearing tired muzzy heads, and providing inspiration.
A big vote of thanks to all our budding playwrights and also to our prayer-supporters around the world. We know your prayers were being answered. At this point, the emphahsis should have shifted to the writing of the songs. It was then that we discovered that inspiration for good songs can be elusive.
Latest news (Oct 2003)With regret, "Names of God" has gone on the back-burner for a while. Inspiritaion seemed suddenly to favour "The apple of His Eye" (see elsewhere on this page).The effort on "NOG" has not been wasted, though. Some of the material was used in our visit to the All Saints Pastoral Centre, London Colney (Sept 2002). Two of the songs have already re-surfaced in "The apple of His eye". There's nothing to stop us from using any part of "NOG" (music or drama) in whatever show we decide to put together, from now on (something you can't do with commercial copyright material). Obviously, We would still like to finish this show one day. We ask all members & web-site readers to pray for inspiration to complete this project. Even if members cannot write music, we are asking them to hum or sing to other members who can. Your additional prayers and God's help will assist us enormously. Thankyou in advance, and God bless you.
"Simeon"Music by Roger Jones, of CMM.Drama written by Steve Hunt, Mike Thomas, and others members of Revelation.Inspired by the music CD (of the same name) released by CMMAdditions and comments by David Pileggi, Douglas Brown and Derek Finch. This project is complete, and was first presented by Revelation early in 1999.
"The Apple of His Eye"Narration framework written by Jacki ThomasSongs & sketches by various other members of RevelationThe original plan for 2003 was to return to the development of our first self-written revue, "Names of God".However, it seems that God had other plans for us. Jacki, our Music Co-ordinator, became inspired to write the narration framework of an entirely new revue, which came to be called "The Apple of His Eye". The aim of this revue is to encourage everyone (members & congregation alike) to reflect on whether we see ourselves as God sees us. There are plenty of reasons why we do/can not. Only when we accept God's image of ourselves are we able to fulfil the role He has for us. The role for each of us is to be an effective part of His kindom. Put it the other way round ... to be part of God's mission team we each need to know and accept ourselves as God made us to be. Praise God for His abundant supply of inspiration! In an amazing burst of creativity, several members enthusiatically started contributing material (songs, sketches, & a monologue) into Jacki's framework. Over the Summer of 2003 we polished and pulled the show together in a series of experimental workshops. This was hard work but went very well, and the show was ready to go on tour in Autumn 2003.
"The Carpenter's Saga"written by Mike Thomas and Rev. R.S. WhortonThis work is complete, and was first presented by Revelation around Christmas 1997.
"Torn Curtain"Musical Eucharist (of the same name) composed by Roger Jones.Drama written by Douglas Brown and edited by Steve Hunt."The Torn Curtain" was originally a musical eucharist service composed by Roger Jones, many years ago, based on the old Anglican prayer book. Revelation felt inspired by the music, to want to take in on their own tour. Douglas Brown (Drama Co-ordiator) did not feel satisfied with the supplied minimalist narration, and volunteered to write a replacement drama to "wrap around" the songs.The end result was a show with a slight air of Star Trek about it. Two people (from our future) go back to 1st Century Jerusalem in a sort of time-travel-simlator. They are a teacher & pupil on an archeology field trip. The pupil has chosen the "arrival date" with some care, in order to witness the miracle of the torn curtain. The teacher, it transpires, has serious problems in his life, and is in a hurry to end the field trip, before the miracle can occur. Both eventually do witness the miracle, and this profoundly changes their teacher-pupil relationship.
What's yet to do? (as of Oct 2003)This project is "largely" complete. Revelation first presented it in Autumn 2000, for a tour of five venues. Hindsight showed there were certain editing improvements to be made, which was done with some assistance from Steve Hunt (Director), later in 2001. A couple of lengthy scenes have been "pruned", and Dennis has written a technical paper about the special FX we used in the show. We intend to add this as an appendix to the script.What remains is to gather it all up & print it in some form or other. This has been delayed due to work on "BQ2", "Names of God" and "The apple of His eye". More news to follow (hopefully).
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