Readers’ theater is a form of drama well-suited to the church. It attempts to present a text rather than to represent or portray an event. It minimizes the staging that may be difficult in some worship spaces. This article describes both the history of readers’ theater and gives suggestions for its use in the church.
Readers’ theater is a dramatic hybrid that combines the oral interpretation of literature with the theatricality of performance art. Readers’ theater has been a viable expressive art form for centuries. The Greeks used a chorus of chanters to link stories and episodes in their plays. The chorus served as a reminder of plotlines or as a transition from scene to scene. The performers in chorus might comment also on the philosophical nature of the play or give a moral pronouncement evident in the performance. The ancient Hebrews composed group chants, praises, and prayers to augment their public worship. Many of the Psalms have verses intended for antiphonal or call/response choral effects in worship. The Catholic Mass emerged with segments of group reading/recitation so that the words and the Scriptures could be heard in the vaulted expanses of the large basilicas and cathedrals. In 1945 the term readers’ theater was first applied to a Broadway oral recitation of Sophocles’ Oedipus Rex. Later in 1951, the first major readers’ theater production was presented on Broadway: George Bernard Shaw’s Don Juan in Hell, a difficult act to produce from his play, Man and Superman. Four prominent actors, dressed in formal attire and carrying black notebooks, stood behind lecterns and brought the philosophical scenes to life by means of vocal and physical expressions. In more recent times, the evolving art form of readers’ theater has been apparent in staging decisions of such prominent Broadway plays and musicals as You’re A Good Man, Charlie Brown; Evita; Godspell; Nicholas Nickleby; and The Grapes of Wrath.
Though used in the secular performance arena, readers’ theater has its roots in religious communication. As early as the tenth-century a.d., the German nun Hroswitha wrote plays about biblical characters and saints, not intending that these plays would be acted, but that they would be read aloud in the confines of a monastery. Today, ten centuries later, we need to rediscover the legacy of Hroswitha and look to “RT” as a performance option for today’s churches.
Although the word readers imply that performers read their scripts, today’s RT performances may or may not have scripts present. “Readers” means that performers offer a text, the words of literature, and ask the audience to imagine what is happening. The readers need not wear actual costumes, sit on actual sets, or have makeup that actually reveals their character. Readers can present more than one character in a performance, (a narrator, a male or female, young or old, funny or sad) by means of vocal variety and nonverbal gestures so as to suggest an imaginative landscape without elaborate lighting or set design. “Theater” recognizes that mere reading without expression or drama cannot sustain interest or imagination. Readers can be expected to move in place, use mime actions, or move in and out of scenes. Multimedia (music/slides/video/film) can be presented simultaneously to augment the imagined scene. Wearing apparel with colors suggests mood changes or character traits. Eye contact may be with the audience, in off-stage pointing (suggesting imagined interaction between characters), in on-stage eye gaze, or in indirect soliloquy musing. Stools, blocks, ladders, and levels can be used to turn a stark stage area into an arena of creativity and imagination.
Thus, a definition of readers’ theater is formulated: readers’ theater is the presentation of prose, poetry, or dramatic literature by two or more performers in such a manner that the words are theatrically offered and recreated in the minds of an audience so that all involved can consider the persuasive intent of the literature. Readers’ theater is not superior or inferior to conventional drama. It is another art form. Conventional drama requires that literature be scripted in a dramatic form, where, in most cases, exposition is discovered in dialogue. RT has no such restrictions. Readers can dramatize narrative portions of short stories, novels, essays, newspaper articles, or poems. Conventional drama normally requires a pictorial space, a specifically limited playing arena, usually box-like with sets and curtains, lighting, and theatrically actualized reality. Readers’ theater uses acoustic or found space: the whole environment, including the audience’s minds.
Readers’ theater may be the most practical dramatic outlet the local church has in these modern times. While not every church has facilities that allow for fully-staged dramatic productions, every church has space that can be creatively used for RT performance. Readers’ theater scripts may consist of single works, written specifically for RT format. Readers’ theater may emphasize its ability to stress persuasive messages by thematically linking various literary selections with original transitions, creating a collage or combined script. A special form of RT called chamber theater combines staged drama with narrative prose literature. Narrators in a chamber theater are considered characters but may have manuscript notebooks with the literary text present and visible. Other personae in the cast may be fully costumed and respond as if in a staged drama. Variations of the RT form can be viable and extremely creative for performance options.
Frequently, readers’ theater makes use of the “split-line” technique, dividing a sentence between multiple readers for effect. Generally, the tempo and pacing of RT performances move at a faster pace than traditional drama. Most audiences can sustain interest in a 30- to 45-minute readers’ theater production, but short sketches or vignettes also work well as lead-ins to sermons or other forms of public communication. Performers need to be aware that their voices and nonverbal communication share most of the intent and help assist the audience in recreating the described scenes on the platform of their own minds and imaginations.
Preparations are identical for the RT performers and the traditional dramatic actor. The difference in the art form is one of degree in actuality and imaginative response. Good believable acting and dimensional credible readers’ theater preparations are essential for any performance.
Blocking or staging an RT requires as much creativity as staging a proscenium drama. In the church sanctuary, you may choose to block your performance on one of the three-axis planes: the x-axis, the y-axis, and the z-axis. The x-axis consists of the right to the middle to the left stage, the straight-line-across-the-stage effect. The y-axis places readers along the upstage/downstage continuum, up and back away from the audience. The z-axis is vertical and can be varied by means of short to medium-tall boxes or ladders or levels. RT makes use of clusters of performers, angles of performers, motivated movements of performers. Effective blocking attempts to keep all readers visible when in a scene. Power areas of the stage are central to the action, and any major character or action should be blocked to the center of the audience’s visual attention.
Readers’ theater can be an important addition to the ministry of any church. It can be used as an important and creative evangelistic tool as well as a teaching mechanism. It can reach and teach people through strong messages, coupled with humor and dramatic pathos. RT can join with a strong biblically-based pulpit ministry to share the good news of God’s grace and the dependability of Christ’s faithfulness to us. Christian readers’ theater dramatizes principles that may have been preached or taught to congregations for years. We live in a media age. Radio, TV, and film have turned us into dramatic consumers. Christian readers’ theater can take the performing art of drama and use it to share the deep truths of Christ as we strive to impact our world for him.