April 2008 Newsletter

People Connection

In January. we started a new regular Newsletter Feature, "the People Connection."  Each month, we select one or two people who have been involved in the cast and/or crew of our productions and have them tell you about their experiences.  This month, we have selected John Christian.  John first appeared as Pastor O'Cleary in our winter production of Tilly.  Most recently, he also appeared in our second annual One Act Competition.

John Christian

John Christian is retired. Previous careers (in reverse order): Database administrator, computer programmer, social worker, carpenter. He now does a lot of reading and writing. He leads singing for a nursing home worship service every Sunday, and preaches there twice a month. Acting experience includes high school plays his junior and senior years (many years ago) and a couple plays at West County Assembly of God. He sang a solo as Marcus in Who Will Call Him King of Kings three different years. Most recently he was Jude in the Living Last Supper.  His DTC experience includes Tilly and the 2008 One Act Competition. John has 7-year-old twin grandsons who live with his older son and daughter-in-law in the Seattle area. His younger son works for Google and lives in the San Francisco Bay area.

I first became involved with DTC a few months ago because I was asked. Allen needed a “pastor” for one scene in Tilly and he asked me to do the part. I agreed. The part was not too long or demanding, but Tilly is a powerful pro-life play. I was glad to be a part of it. I also enjoyed using my old carpentry skills when it came time to build the sets. The camaraderie of the other cast members and their children was also a big plus. I got to meet and talk to people from other churches I would not have met otherwise. I hope some will become friends.

I didn't really know what the “One Act Competition” really was, but I tried out just the same. I figured that at least it would be more acting. And meeting more people. I was put into four plays. Two were minor roles. In the Calendar play I was Father Time (big guy with white beard). In Storybooks I was Paul Bunyan (big guy with red plaid shirt). Kristy insisted she was not type casting me, but I don't believe her!

In two other plays I had longer roles. I especially liked my role as Quince in a scene from Midsummer Night's Dream. It was a comedy role and I like to clown around sometimes. Too often previous roles were serious or bad guy roles. Need fun roles from time to time. (Whether or not I'm good at it is another question altogether.)

Next year I hope to be able to contribute some scripts to the One Act Competition.

Lessons learned so far: 1. You can never know your lines too well. 2. Learn the lines of the others on stage with you too. 3. For clean up in the gym, bring your own dustpan.

[April 2008--A Christmas Carol] [Back to April 2008 News]