Story of a Script

The process of script to finished drama involves several people. The poor thing goes through a long process of correction, reading and re-reading and other things at the hands of numerous people before being finally presented on stage. Unless it’s one of those times when God writes it and I just watch. In which case he gets the whole credit.

Firstly, it goes through at least three drafts. That’s not nearly enough for me, scripts for publication go through several more, and a gap of at least a month while I ignore it before reading it again. This is to show up the gaps or mistakes where I have a dead character ask someone a question. A script intended for publication is then emailed to three people from different backgrounds who kindly agreed to take on the next part of the process. They read it, re-read it, pull it apart, look for flaws, ask questions and fill in a small form I send out with the piece, so I know what they think. The poor script’s problems haven’t even begun, because I now look at it hard with the three answered questionnaires and kick it about a bit, pull at the edges and add bits or take them away.

If its a script to use here in our local church that doesn’t happen. Instead it gets translated. My German still not being up to standard, I send the quivering manuscript off either to someone on the team who wants to have a go at it, or one of my long-suffering translators, Franz, Katrin, Manu, Marcel, Rebekka and Ute, who go over it with a toothcomb and send it back unbelievably fast, translated, altered and sounding better than I wrote in the first place.

Then rehearsals begin.

Before rehearsals I mutilate the script and copy it for the team and the prompt script. In the prompt script I (or the co-director and I If there is one) decide where the characters should stand, what they should be doing at any given time. Roughly. This changes frequently in rehearsals because then the actors are let loose on the poor thing, and they are encouraged to really make the most of the material, pull it about, try different ideas and if need be, change, remove or add bits as a team. On the day of the presentation the team is encouraged to go with the flow, build up things they feel need to be built up, and drop anything they feel won’t work, as long as it doesn’t cause problems for other team members.

Then the thoroughly neurotic manuscript is finally put into my haphazard filing system, to soothe its punctuation until I get a phone call from someone needing that sort of material, and the poor thing is run through a similar process again.

I mention this because now and again, people say kind things like “You wrote a good drama”, and I think. Maybe: but what you saw on the stage wasn’t just mine. It’s a piece of worship put together by a lot of people who are gifted as translators, actors, and many other areas, but who all have the same passion to see God glorified.

And although I’ve said it to you all before: Thank you.

(And I haven't even started on the Tech Crew)