In Silhouette

About a month ago I got a call from a friend at church asking if I would help with something for the Ward Christmas party. She had seen a nativity done in silhouette set to a Christmas version of Leonard Cohen's song Hallelujah. She wondered if I could put together something like that for our ward. I said I was happy to help and she sent me this video of what she wanted.

She liked the original, except for the ending. She didn't want the nativity to end with the crucifixion. I agreed and started brainstorming an alternate ending. When I met with the Activities Committee to explain our concept I suggested that we could just rewrite the words to that verse. This suggestion was met with some shock from the members of the Committee. I guess changing lyrics wasn't something they had done before. I said it wouldn't be a big deal and they agreed that could work. 

The engineers in the group took on the task of building the screen, one of the women with a theatre background volunteered to do the props and costumes, and the head of the committee said she'd send out messages to everyone to set our rehearsals. That left me the task of rewriting the last verse and planning the blocking. Those were my favorites jobs, so I was happy.

I listened to the original Christmas version several times and decided that I was bothered by more than just the last verse. Not all of the phrases fit the music and I wanted to expand some of the concepts. So instead of changing the last verse I wrote three new verses for the beginning and heavily changed the other three verses. We dropped the last verse altogether and used a quote from President Russell M. Nelson instead. Bryan was a major help with the rewrite. He gets credit for most of the Joseph verse and the line about "a bursting inn" in the fourth verse.

Once it was written, we had to stage it. We had exactly two rehearsals, one the week before and one the day of the performance, and only about thirty minutes with the whole cast. The night before that second rehearsal I typed up the staging notes from the week before (I was thankful for the woman that wrote down all the direction I was handing out!) and decided to add the present day silhouettes during the final quote. I really wanted to bring the Savior's story and example to our day and that seemed like a good solution. The actors during that section are actually the singers! They were the only performers who were in modern clothes and I couldn't take the time for costume changes for the other actors. They were good sports to jump in and do it in the eleventh hour.

Speaking of the musicians, while I directed the actors, they put together the song. At the beginning of our first rehearsal I handed them the words I'd finished writing the night before, told them my general idea for how it might go, told them I trusted them, and left them to it. I knew the pianist had brought a piano solo version of the song that she already had. It was only after the rehearsal was over that I discovered the song she had was in the wrong key for our two Primary kid singers. The pianist found the key that worked best for them, wrote out the chords, then put my words to notes and sent us all sheet music a few days later. She's pretty fantastic.

Our church building doesn't have a stage, just a big gym that can be divided into three equal sections. We created a stage by closing the accordion doors of the third section partway and attaching the massive bedsheet on its PVC pipe frame to the doors. When we were staging the nativity I noticed two problems. The actors didn't want to get too close to the curtain (which in turn made their shadows bigger than we wanted) and they weren't always aware when they were visible and when they were still hidden behind the doors. The woman that did the costumes and props suggested that we tape numbers on the floor, actual marks, for the actors to stand on. That would get them close enough to the curtain so the shadows were the correct size and it would ensure that they were on stage all the way. I told her I thought it was brilliant and we used the idea.

If you watch the original version and our updated rendition you'll see that I did pull some ideas that they used. I had a theatre professor in college that liked to say, "You're only as good as the people you steal from." When you're directing, that's true. But I did put my own spin on it. I think my favorite change was during the Wise Men verse. I knew that I didn't want to use a baby doll to represent Jesus because he was a young child when the Wise Men found him, not a baby. But I hadn't figured out a fix by the time I needed to stage it. The sweet couple that played Mary and Joseph had brought their three little boys to our first practice. When it came time to block that verse I looked over at the boys while they entertained themselves and inspiration struck. I asked the parents if one of the boys wanted to be in the nativity. They said yes, the oldest (who is a very young and small five year old) had expressed interest. So on the spot he was cast as Jesus as a young child. He took direction better than some of the big kids and was calm backstage, which was amazing.

During that second practice I noticed that each actor had two shadows, a strong one and a second lighter one. I went backstage to figure out where the second light source was. One of the engineers that had built the screen frame figured it out. The main bright light was reflecting off the shiny gym floor which created another shadow! Thankfully that's the room we use for Primary and they have long gray rugs that they roll out to quiet the kids' noisy feet. A few people quickly put the rugs out and the double shadow problem vanished!

Because we'd only had two practices I knew that the actors might struggle to remember their blocking. I decided to print two copies of the script as 18" x 24" blueprints. Before our second rehearsal I stapled a script to each side of the backstage area. The actress that played Mary asked if she could highlight her part. I thought it was a good idea and could help the others as well. Between the practice and the performance I found every color of highlighter we had at home. When we arrived for the party that night I spent time backstage highlighting everyone's stage direction, each character in their own color. As we were getting ready to start the performance I saw several of the participants reviewing the wall scripts, so I think they helped.

The Christmas party started with the kids visiting with Santa in a different room (I appreciated the effort to separate Santa from the retelling of the birth of the Savior), then dinner, then the nativity. Near the end of the dinner we gathered our performers for costumes and final blocking reviews. I had to continually remind the kids to only touch their own props and to definitely not move anyone else's prop. What I didn't realize was that I also should have told them not to spin their own props through the air. Moments before we were supposed to start one of our stars (we had one for each side of the stage) was spun so much that it went flying and broke when it met the floor. Our amazing prop woman grabbed the painters tape she'd used to put numbers on the floor and put the star back together.

And with that excitement, we began. I'm pleased with how it turned out. Oh, and I'm not the only member of my family who was at those rehearsals. Peter played the stage right wall (his hair has gotten so long that he had to pull it into a bun so it didn't fall in his face and show up in the silhouette) and Phoebe and Sophie played the angels. They all were wonderful! And don't worry, none of them broke the star.

Bryan was tasked with recording our final product. He said the best, and only unobstructed, view was from under the table we had sat at to eat our dinner. Big thanks to Bryan for lying on his belly under a table to take this video. For some reason it won't go to full screen here, but if you open it in YouTube it should give you the option to fill the screen.