Hi all, here we are with Week 32! I am excited to share from a professional writer this week, Carolyn Lloyd-Davies. We met at our church and I felt nudged to ask Carolyn to write a reflection for Hope Hour. I sometimes think that when we hear from God this way, it is the same as when the prophet Elijah heard God speak to him in that gentle whisper (1 Kings 19:12-13). This week, Carolyn shares how her own nudge from God led her to writing a Passion Play and she looks to where this might take her next...
In Carolyn's words...
I’m not a fanciful person, even though my work is creating stories which can be fanciful in the extreme. However, I do know that God speaks to us, leaving us to use our own free will to follow Him or not. One early morning, whilst sitting in my Oxford garden, meditating and praying (although ‘meditating’ might be pushing it a bit far…) I suddenly had a clear message, completely unbidden, which told me to write a Passion Play for the whole Community. I had never written a Passion Play in my life, let alone work with non-professional actors, but it suddenly seemed the most obvious and amazing thing to do. I was inspired!
And so it came to pass, after several drafts, my play ‘And a Sword Shall Pierce Your Soul’ was taken forward by my local church to be performed at Easter 2022. I believe God also moved to find our gifted director, assistant director and co-producer, and we felt a strong desire to ‘cast our net’ wide inviting everyone who might be interested, regardless of faith, stage experience, special needs, all were welcome to come to the first reading. Trusting in God’s plan, we didn’t even have auditions but just identified during the reading who might play which part, and listening to their preferences the cast was created, with everyone having a role.
That Easter, the church was full with a wonderfully supportive audience and building on that success, He prompted us (I believe) to go further, quite out of our comfort zone, and plans were made to take it to an outdoor public venue in Oxford in 2024. After all historically, Passion Plays were always performed outdoors and this was now to be called The Oxford Passion Play, which had a certain gravitas about it! There were some initial difficulties finding a good location, but eventually we found a perfect place in Hinksey Park with a high footfall. Again everyone taking part was a volunteer, and no-one was paid except for the technical company who provided a superb sound system. But our final test of faith was the weather.
Due to perform on Easter Saturday, it rained more or less continuously that week. The weather forecast suggested it might be slightly improving by the end of the week, but the production team had to make a decision on Wednesday whether to transfer indoors to the church again (as the sound equipment depended on the location) or hold fast to an outdoor public performance. We all prayed hard and then decided it would be outside! Nerve wracking to say the least, but we trusted in God’s guidance and sure enough, the day dawned chilly but bright! No rain! The crew were on hand from 7am to set up the stage and the excitement was palpable.
Looking back, it’s astonishing that one nudge in my direction on a sunny morning in 2021, resulted in taking the message of Jesus’ last days and glorious resurrection out to a random audience of nearly 400 people in 2024, with a voluntary community of fifty three actors, crew and local neighbours.
And now the gentle but insistent voice is there again… 2026 take it out into the centre of Oxford, go wider, go bigger, go further! It’s actually quite scary but I do believe if we put it all back to God and work with Him, our dreams will be surpassed.
Carolyn is a playwright, producer and training facilitator. She trained as an actor at the Academy of Live and Recorded Arts (ALRA) in London, and her first professional full-length play ‘Silent on the Matter’ was performed at the Old Fire Station, Oxford, in 2015. She was selected for the Oxford Playhouse Playmaker Scheme and since then, she has written five full-length plays, two audio comedies, and was commissioned to write two short screenplays. Her two latest plays ‘Penetration’ and ‘Can’t See For Looking’ were both performed in London and have been published by Aurora Metro. She was a Trustee of ALRA for seven years and is now on the Steering Group of Oxfordshire Theatre Makers. She is currently working on a TV adaptation of her stage play ‘Penetration’ and running a series of playwriting courses at The Oxford Playhouse for ‘later in life’ writers.
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