Tuesday, November 28, 2006

The Creche Collector Design by Kent Landrum The Christmas Musical at the Northwest Church is not really a musical this year, though everyone keeps referring to it that way. I wrote about 10 different starts to songs just to see if I could get musical juices flowing, but in the end, we decided to do a straight play with some choral music surrounding it. The synopsis runs like this: When Will Callus, a seventeen-year-old foster child brings his crèche collection to the Leffermann home, Cole Davis, a cynical newspaperman with a weakness for a good story, gets curious about Will's past. As the Leffermanns and their small church community prepare for another Living Nativity, Cole traces the mystery of this young boy's obsession with Christ's birth through a menagerie of offbeat characters, and in the process finds what both he and Will have been searching for all along. A couple of rewrites later, that's the basic idea, but things have changed a bit. And as I tell them everyday, the play needs one more major rewrite, but we're out of time. So hopefully, I'll revisit it and get it right after the first of the year. But I've said that before... Rehearsals have been a real joy. I've been working with these actors for several years now, and we are starting to see great improvement in the ability to speak and play action. The set design has created a bit of a stir just because it's a thrust stage that takes up a huge amount of room, costing us chairs in the audience, but in the end, the relationship between actor and audience is going to be pretty magical because of the space. We run December 7, 8, and 9, with both a matinee and an evening performance on the 9th. Evening performances are at 7:30, and the Saturday Matinee is at 2:00. Come if you can, but get there early, because seating is going to be somewhat limited. The Northwest Church 15555 15th Ave NE. Shoreline, WA I think it will be worth your time. 8:22:01 AM    comment []

Thanksgiving More dessert than we needed... Just a note about Thanksgiving: we were missing children for the first time. Amy and Ryan weren't there. These things are inevitable as time rolls on, but it was odd at the annual gathering of the Atkinson/Berryman families to be missing two of the Pacific Northwest clan. Amy was in Cincinnati having Thanksgiving with my sister Jody, while my nephew Ryan was in Florida at Embry-Riddle University. We celebrated the usual birthdays: Dick, Meghan, but we didn't do Ryan's because..well, obviously. We missed our friend Phyllis, too, but sometimes you just have to work. But Nikki was there, and this year, her Mom was in from Cleveland, so she graced our table as well. We ate a lot, didn't watch the Cowboys (we never do--I've gotten used to it), and laughed, traded stories, and everyone was gracious as they suffered through hundreds of Germany pictures. My niece Anna spent six weeks in Germany last year so it was fun to compare notes. What bounty. We had enough pie to serve an army, and a huge birthday cake besides. It is coming home with more and more force how wealthy we are, average American family that we are. Is there anything to be but thankful? And yet, the world suffers under poverty, war, spiritual emptiness, and all manner of evil. But grace surrounds us here, and we are called in some fashion to respond to both the Maker and Giver of that grace and His suffering world. I hope Advent brings some wisdom... Every good thing given and every perfect gift is from above... 8:05:43 AM    comment []

Snow A rose hanging on... We were in the middle of the costume parade for the Christmas play at church, when someone threw the door open and said, "Look." The snow was coming down hard last Sunday afternoon as we went throught the first act, and when 4:00 o'clock came, most people headed for home before the streets got bad. Which was a shame, because 4:00 o'clock was when we'd scheduled the annual hanging of the greens to begin. A small crew got busy hanging the wreaths and the garland, arranging the various creches on the stage, and as 6:00 o'clock approached, more folks headed for home, including me. Snow is fairly rare here in Seattle, though the surrounding mountains get their share. It always gives me a sense of magic and wonder that then morphs to melancholy. I took my camera out to the backyard on a whim, and saw this little rose blithely standing there. It was a little worn, as you can see, but still...the yellow against the white, spring against the late fall, something hanging on against the cold... Late yesterday, I headed for the Cash and Carry in Shoreline, patches of blue sky over my house as I pulled out of the driveway. Five minutes later, headed down an east west street in Shoreline not more than two miles from my house, I was driving in a blizzard of ice. I could still look over my shoulder and see the blue sky behind me. This is one of the things I love about Seattle, rain sparkling in the sun as it falls, snow cascading right in sight of blue sky. We cancelled rehearsal, or as everyone at church says, "play practice." Sure enough, it was smart to do it as side roads apparently became ice rinks. Predictions are that it will stay frozen today and tonight, with new snow tomorrow. Maybe we'll have to cancel tonight as well. I hope not, though the play's not in bad shape even now. He spreads the snow like wool and scatters the frost like ashes. ...wash me, and I will be whiter than snow... 7:38:33 AM    comment []

© Copyright 2006 Jeff Berryman .