April 16, 2010
When “Doctor Who” Resembled Church Drama
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The new season of Doctor Who premieres on BBC America tonight with Matt Smith stepping in to the lead role as the 11th incarnation of the Time Lord who travels the universe in search of adventure. I’ve been a fan of the show since I discovered the classic series on our local PBS station when I was in high school or college. That was when Tom Baker played the eccentric 900-year-old Time Lord. He’s still one of my favorite actors to portray the Doctor.
For those who are unfamiliar with the series, the Doctor is a renegade Time Lord from the planet of Gallifrey. Not content to merely observe events, he explores the universe in a ship that travels through space and time called a TARDIS (Time And Relative Dimensions In Space). His particular TARDIS is stuck in the shape of an old British police box, thanks to a faulty chameleon circuit. The TARDIS is larger on the inside than it is on the outside.
The series premiered in Britain in the 1960s with William Hartnell as the first incarnation of the Doctor. When Hartnell left the series, producers wrote him out by having the Doctor regenerate. They introduced the idea that whenever Time Lords are seriously injured or near death, their bodies heal themselves by regenerating into a new physical form. Therefore, a completely different actor can play the Doctor and add his own mark to the role. The series was canceled in 1989 but resurrected five years ago by Russell T Davies. There was an interesting story about the writing of Doctor Who in the years before its cancellation that made me think that it was a lot like church drama.
March 20, 2010
Memorizing Scripts – No Shortcut for Hard Work
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It’s a Saturday night. Your actors have shown up for the final rehearsal for the sketch for 
tomorrow’s worship service. You really want to work on polishing the performance till it shines. And you’d be able to do it, too, if it wasn’t for that one guy.
You know who I’m talking about. It’s that one person who doesn’t have his or her lines memorized yet. But they’ll have them memorized by tomorrow, they promise. Of course, you know that you’ll be sweating through the entire performance, hoping that the lines all come out in the right order and that the action doesn’t grind to a halt while everybody looks blankly at each other waiting for someone to say their lines.
March 5, 2010
New To Church Drama? Try Readers’ Theatre
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Starting a drama ministry can be an intimidating task, especially if it’s something you or your church hasn’t tried before. You may have plenty of volunteers who are eager to take the stage but you don’t know what their stage personality is going to be like. Once they’re up in front of an audience, they may behave completely differently from rehearsals.
I’ve seen some people who were shy and reserved in real life. Rehearsals were excruciating. I cringed when I imagined what their performances would look like. I tried to be as encouraging as possible, hoping to get something close to a decent performance out of them. At least it would be a church audience, who are often kind even when we lay a rotten egg. But then something happened. That shy performer was a different person on stage. He was outgoing, energetic and fascinating to watch.
February 28, 2010
Writing One Thing; Saying Another
Posted by Michael in : Writing , 1 comment so far
Most of my writing has a theme. The theme guides me like a lamp in the woods on a pitch-black night. It’s how I get from the beginning to the end of my story. Some people could argue that short scripts don’t always require a theme. I’m not going to disagree with them. I know what works for me.
Sometimes a sketch might be a simple illustration or analogy. I watched one like that not too long ago. For me it was deadly dull. So although I didn’t feel connected to the character, the script served its function of acting as an illustration to set up a sermon. Truthfully, I’ve written my share of sketches that served as analogies and nothing more.
February 20, 2010
A Plan Comes Together: RileysDiner’s Back
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If all goes according to plan — and of course whatever really goes according to plan — RileysDiner.com will have its first new sketch posted after many months of inactivity. Several factors have prevented me from being able to post new content, but hopefully all of that will change starting with Saturday night’s new scripts.
And since we haven’t had new scripts to offer, I’ve been hesitant to blog about new topics. This is my first entry since last June. Way too long. Anyway, here’s what’s planned for tomorrow.
June 20, 2009
Church brings ‘Beneventi and Sons’ to life
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Sunrise Community Church near Sacremento, Calif., performed one of my favorite sketches, “Beneventi and Sons,” the week before Father’s Day. Chris Poppelreiter, who leads the church’s drama ministry, sent me a few photos. I’m always delighted to get a chance to see how others bring my work to life.
“Beneventi and Sons” is a modern retelling of the The Prodigal Son. The two characters are Nick, the older son, and the father, Pop, who runs an auto-repair shop in New York City. Nick is upset because Pop has given everyone the day off so he can throw a big party for his other son, who’s returned home after a five-year absence.
May 21, 2009
The one thing every good writer must do
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Writers write.
Whenever I hit a dry spell in my writing, I will scribble these two words on a scrap of paper and tape them to my computer monitor. It reminds me that I need to stop calling myself a writer if I can’t make the time to write. And if you’ve been following my blog, you know my last post was over three months ago, so I am definitely in a dry spell when I can’t even crank out a blog post. (more…)
February 3, 2009
Visit the RileysDiner group on Facebook
Posted by Michael in : Uncategorized , add a comment
If you’re on Facebook, take a few minutes and join the RileysDiner group on Facebook. If you haven’t joined Facebook yet, now’s a perfect time to join the 21st century. (Don’t worry; it’s taken me a long time to get there, too. I just started texting people from my cell phone a few weeks ago.)
Our Facebook group has more than two dozen members. They’re all people who are involved in church drama ministry. When you join, you can be part of a resource that can help you find the answer you need to take your drama group to the next level. (more…)
December 7, 2008
A scene from “The Road to Bethlehem”
Posted by Michael in : Acting , 1 comment so far
For several years now, I’ve been privileged to have Pflugerville Community Church in Texas stage my one-act Christmas drama, “The Road to Bethlehem.” I’ve seen photos of their productions, heard about the thousands of people who have taken the journey, and received many kind notes of appreciation from church members.
By reviewing the photos, I could tell the church made a significant commitment to tell the story well, to help bring this Christmas story to life. This year, first through the miracle of Facebook, I was able to see a video of one of the scenes. The scene features the characters of Zechariah and Elizabeth. The two actors portraying these characters have fantastic chemistry. The scene is available on YouTube now, and I’ve posted it here for you to enjoy.
A special thank-you to my good friend, Heidi, at Pflugerville Community Church. She was kind enough to send me the video of this scene. We’ve exchanged many e-mails over the years as the members of her church brought this drama to life. If you’re interested in staging “The Road to Bethlehem” at your church for Christmas 2009, you can order a reading copy and send me an e-mail for more info about performance rights.
October 22, 2008
“Is This Seat Taken?” debuts at Second City
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After a performance of "Is This Seat Taken?" in Second City’s Donny’s Skybox Theatre are, from left, actors Don Markus, Ashley Lobo, writer Michael Leathers, actors Julia Lippert, Jeff Daniel and director Tom Blandford.
It was a surreal evening for me to watch one of my sketches on a Second City stage in Chicago. "Is This Seat Taken?" was one of six 10-minute plays chosen by Chicago Dramatists and The Second City Training Center to be featured in an hour-long performance every Saturday in October. All four actors were energetic, played well off each other, and connected with the audience. The director, Tom Blandford, had a focused vision for the script and analyzed each performance for ways to push it to a stronger comedic level. It’s a privilege to be able to write something for the stage and hand it over to creative people who will breathe life into your work. (more…)