Afraid!
is a one-man play, staged with dramatic lighting and
entertaining audience interaction. Its text is the
Gospel of Mark, translated into contemporary American
speech. As characters and settings and lights constantly
shift, the Gospel engages the audience's imaginations,
surprises them with flashes of humor, and drives relentlessly
forward with all the dramatic suspense you would expect
from great theater.
AFRAID
is Evangelism
Every
Christian has wondered what it would have been like: to
have been there, in Galilee, and met Jesus... AFRAID!
is an effort to help those in the audience have that encounter.
How? By doing exactly what the evangelist Mark did: by
telling the story in the present tense, here and now,
from beginning to end, in everyday language--and by making
the audience members part of the action....
Audience
members are addressed individually as the actor roams
the room... They are healed, asked for a coin, or given
bread... And they are challenged to "go out" and
tell the story to others--if they're not too afraid.....(MK
16:8) By the time the last candle is blown out, each
audience member has a sense that they are part of the
story God is writing--not simply spectators... That Jesus
is a very real Presence among them.... And that they
are called, not to be afraid, but to follow Him.
Runyeon
sets the famous Sermon in a revealing new setting: as
told by the apostle Matthew to the church in Antioch,
shortly after the Roman army has burned Jerusalem to
the ground...
In
this dramatic setting, suddenly the lines heard so often
have new meaning. And the very human stories of the people
which Matthew may have addressed come to life:
There
is the livestock merchant, the silk trader, the Deacon
who just can't stop talking, the seamstress who spends
all her money on her clothes, and many others...
As
Runyeon moves around the church, retelling the sermon,
there is surprising humor ... and very powerful drama...
In
the end, all those present have the sense that this sermon
is about them, in some mysterious way... that they, too
must decide, as did the crowd on the mountain, what they
will go do now ... for they have their own part to play
in this "story"...
The
story of Christmas is simply: “the story of how
LIGHT came into the world,” according to Runyeon’s
comically imperfect angel-in-training—who arrives
with a crash, from Brooklyn.
The story begins with light being created in the beginning: “PPPPP! The Boss spoke, and there was light. Just
like that!” It continues in the story of the light
given to Grandpa Abraham, King David, and his descendants:
“It was a new kind of light—not light ‘out
there’ but light ‘in here,’ by listening
when the Boss spoke.” And the story climaxes in
the coming of the Word of Light into the world: “It
all began when Gabriel—my hero!—came to Mary...”
As the story unfolds, more and
more members of the audience suddenly discover themselves
center stage, helping to bring the story of Christmas
alive, in ways they never thought possible.
And the final 1/2 story? Oh, it starts with St. Nicholas
and it ends with...
Runyeon
sets the famous letter within the context of the early
church. It was only 12 years after Jesus...a time when
almost all Christians were also Jewish. But there was
growing tension in Jerusalem, between Jewish “Christians,”
who thought Jesus was the Messiah, and their friends who
didn’t...
One day a Jewish Christian leader named Stephen was called
before the High Court...accused of blasphemy...and stoned
to death! The news spread like wildfire... Many Jewish
Christians scattered to towns outside Jerusalem, to avoid
persecution.
But they found new problems there. They couldn't
find jobs. Their children were sick. And their leaders
were fighting. They began to doubt that God was with
them after all. They didn’t know what to do.
Then: Jesus’ brother James arrived. He had been
their teacher. He knew them. And he spoke words they
would never forget.
The
characters...
Runyeon
portrays James as a man of deep emotion and wit, who
speaks with wisdom to the troubled members of the church:
the scandalized elders...the work-aholic trader... the
know-it-all teacher... the pampered aristocrat...the
humble poor...the incurable gossips...the angry activist...the
worried parents...and, of course:
we ourselves.
Or
have we forgotten: we have our own parts to play in this
story?
“Didn’t I tell you…
if you believed…
you would see
the glory of God?”
All the drama and power of this beloved Gospel are brought to life in a spellbinding performance…
From the wedding at Cana to the raising of Lazarus…
Signs of astonishing power…
And a call to deeper faith.
What is SIGNS?
SIGNS is a one-man play, staged with dramatic lighting and entertaining audience interaction. Its text is the first eleven chapters of the Gospel of John, translated into contemporary American speech. As characters and settings and lights constantly shift, the Gospel engages the audience’s imaginations, surprises them with flashes of humor, and drives relentlessly forward with all the dramatic suspense you would expect from great theater.
SIGNS is Evangelism
Every Christian has wondered what it would have been like: to have been there, in Galilee, and met Jesus… SIGNS is an effort to help those in the audience have that encounter. How? By doing exactly what the evangelist John did: by telling the story in the present tense, here and now, from beginning to end, in everyday language—and by making the audience members part of the action…
Audience members are addressed individually as the actor roams the room… They are invited to “come and see,” they become part of the crowd witnessing the signs, they are healed, given bread, and challenged to believe…
By the time the last candle is blown out, each audience member has a sense that they are part of the story that God is writing—not simply spectators. That Jesus is a very real Presence among them. And that they have been called not only to witness these signs, but to respond to the Word they have heard, like Lazarus, by becoming a sign of that Life themselves.
In
this dramatic setting, suddenly the lines heard so often
have new meaning. And the very human stories of the people
which Matthew may have addressed come to life:
Runyeon
sets the famous letter within the context of the early
church. It was only 12 years after Jesus...a time when
almost all Christians were also Jewish. But there was
growing tension in Jerusalem, between Jewish “Christians,”
who thought Jesus was the Messiah, and their friends who
didn’t...
What is SIGNS?