Back in the early 2000's, I wanted to do my series of Bible-character monologues in churches around South Carolina. I had been doing them since 1979. What better place to get advice than the South Carolina Baptist Convention headquarters, aka the "Baptist Building".
The head of the education division was a guy I went to seminary with and was in our drama group there. In fact, he had played "Satan" in the play I directed for my thesis called "The Harrowing of Hell". My father had been head of the Sunday School department at the "building" until is retirement in 1976. When I got there, I made mention to some of the workers about my father. Most said they had no idea that he had worked there. I was floored. My father was a pioneer in the Southern Baptist Convention. I realized that some people aren't interested in history. You need history to know where you are going.
I talked with my friend there, and he suggested I speak with a man who worked in the Music/Worship Arts Department. I knew the head of that department. His children had seen me in the play "The Butterfly That Blushed" at Columbia College some 20 years before and still thought of me as "Worm". I talked to this guy, whose name was Tom. He asked me what church I went to, and I said that it was St. Andrews Baptist in Columbia. His face lit up and said that was his church. He had been looking to put together a Drama group at the church and wanted to know if I would be interested. It was a volunteer position, and I said yes.
We got a few others interested in the project and then tried to get a name for our group. We finally settled on The Salt and Light Players. Tom used his library to find scripts for us to do. Our pastor at the time wanted us to do skits before his sermons to preview what he was going to preach on. He would tell us a week or two in advance, and then we would work on something to do. I wrote most of those skits. My favorite was one about explaining baseball to someone with no concept of the game. Our pastor was a big Atlanta Braves fan, so I was able to weave that into the skit.
The church had two morning services. The first was around 10am, which was a contemporary service. The second was at 11am, and that was the more traditional service. We would do the skits at both. The earlier service was a bit more relaxed, and the reception we got was also a bit different than the traditional. Years later, I met a woman at my current church who told me that she did the music at St. Andrews in the contemporary service, when I was there. She remembered my work. Small world.
We also did more formal presentations for Easter and Christmas which were scripted from other sources. We were in Biblical costume for one. I knelt down, and my robe caught on my sandal. As I tried to stand up, I couldn't. One of the other actors got me up. We covered it with throw away dialogue. The congregation never knew.
When I was in seminary, I wrote a Reader's Theatre one-act for Christmas. I found that reading a script could be done in a church setting. The other folks in our group like reading rather than memorizing, so we did that. I directed and helped in those works. The church also let me do some of my original Bible character monologues from time to time. We also hosted a statewide Drama conference at our church.
By 2007, we got another pastor who didn't want the same emphasis on Drama as our previous pastor, so the Salt and Light Players fell away. When I graduated from seminary, I had offers to go to individual churches to do Drama. I had declined those offers, because I wanted to teach Drama in a college. That didn't work out, so I started doing stuff on my own as a guest at a church or other venues. I ended up doing Drama for my local church, after all. A friend told me something profound once. It was about something else, but I think it fits here. Sometimes, you get on a detour, but eventually you will get back to the main road. My "main road" was Church Drama, at least for 5 years.
