In 2002 a group of us at Berowra Uniting Church produced a two-part dramatic presentation of the book of 1 Peter.
We approached this through a series of weekly workshops during which we read parts of 1 Peter, go to know each other over a meal, thought about how to dramatise the book, wrote a script, and practiced it to the point where we could present it to our church. We acted the play in the place of the Bible reading and sermon over two weeks. A little later we repeated the same two-week presentation at another nearby church.
The final presentation was videoed by, alas, the recording has been lost. We also lost the extensive PowerPoint slides that were an integral component of the play — used for both scene-setting and to display the words of 1 Peter as they were discussed. What remains is the script, the text of the PowerPoint slides, and an outline of the workshopping approach. Those three components are in the files below.
We built the script around the idea of showing how Peter might have written the letter. There are three characters: an elderly Peter, his wife, and a young Silas (who acts as scribe). We portrayed Silas as a young, modern, trendy IT guy and gave him a laptop on which he could type as Peter dictated. Behind that was a theatrical idea about blurring the past and the present, in an attempt to emphasise the continuing relevance of Peter’s words.
To anyone thinking of using thee materials, I can say three things:
- You are welcome to use this however you wish.
- Rather than simply use out script, however, I encourage you to undertake the full interactive process of writing one yourself.
- It is a fun learning experience and well worth the effort. The greatest value will be found by the participants.