Comments Through The Years
(we keep all writers anonymous unless permission is granted to quote from an email. More recent entries comes first.)
Our group performed "The First Christmas" on..... It was modified in some respects, and it was well received by the congregation and guests. Thank you for providing the script and ideas. (2010)
We performed "The First Christmas" for the second year in a row, on December ...th, 2010, at our church...We enjoyed it very much. It is the perfect blend: with many parts, easy lines for children, and easy to stage.
Thank you so much for allowing us to use your material. May the LORD bless you!
Thank you very much for allowing us to use your script for our Christmas Eve Family Pageant this year. It was a huge success; the kids did a fantastic job with only two days of practicing the week before. We didn't even have time for a dress rehearsal and yet it went off with barely a hitch. The congregation really felt the love and joy of the Holy Spirit as they sat and watched and sang together with the cast. I can't wait to see some of the pictures and the video of the performance which someone took (unplanned by myself and my director)
With thanks for a very Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!
Thank you very much for such a fine script. We especially appreciated the fact that it could be easily be adjusted for the number of available participants without losing content or the spirit of the message, It was warmly received by our congregation. Thanks for making it available to us.
We did have a wonderful pageant. Thank you. I too was in the same situation as many others when I wrote to your website. I didn't have any experiences with pageants and (our church) had not had one in many years. The website and information was an invaluable resource to me the the crew that put it together.
We are so thankful for your wonderful program. I hope we do it justice!
Greetings, We just want to say thank you and God Bless you for writing this wonderful play and making it available for people to use....have a blessed Christmas.
THanks for making this available and so easy to use.
As the new Children's Ministry Coordinator at our Church, I was thrilled to find your wonderful script during my on-line search for a pageant. We plan to put it on....(date)......Thank you.
Thanks so much for all your work, and your wonderful play. We've been rehearsing the play for a month, and it's looking really good.
Thanks again for your work and willingness to share. We're all enjoying working on this play.
Thank you!
I've been a little stressed by pending Christmas pageant. I didn't want a "cutesy" pageant with a lot of extraneous characters added for comedic relief, but I was having a hard time putting together the script and story myself. I couldn't decide how little or much to include. And I should mention that I'm totally new to the pageant experience.
I don't actually need to provide script to players until next week, but I just couldn't seem to find my way. This morning, on a whim, I decided to look online for free pageant scripts. Yours was the first one I opened, and it's PERFECT for what I'm hoping for our church! And I appreciate all the extra info you've provided.
We will be performing your pageant script on ___________.
Thanks for your help!
Thank you so much for posting this wonderful script on the web. We are a small start-up school with 20 children grades 2-6 and we were able to perform like stars! The children loved the play and now truly understand (and can recite) the entire Christmas story. We did alter one section; we exchanged the baby for a toddler from our preschool for a visit from the magi. It was awkward but cute.
We again thank you. Our performance on Dec 15th was a huge success.
It was a huge success! Thank you so much for sharing and God Bless you this Christmas Season!
Thank you for your script and all the wonderful advice as to produce this special story of faith.
Robert
I had contacted you back in February of this year regarding the script for The Christmas Story with several questions. I am from the Church of the Good Shepherd in Pitman, New Jersey and this was the first time in about 25 years that our church had had a pageant. My wife and I volunteered to produce and direct it. We are both retired and it seemed to make sense to us for us devote the time to it. After much research on the internet, back in February, we selected your wife, Louis's, script and shortly thereafter contacted you via email. We were nervous and unsure how to proceed. You sent our request for guidance to several churches that you knew had produced it. Two of them got back to me with some helpful information.
At any rate we started to put the pageant together. It became a ten month effort. We had the pageant this past Sunday, Dec 13. It was very successful, way beyond our dreams when we started.
Since it was 25 years since our last pageant we were starting almost from scratch. We realized that our first task would be to raise money for costumes, set and props. Our first fund raiser was a bake sale in April. Our priest had told us that we could not sell anything at our fund raisers which put a real twist into our efforts. We asked for donations based on what the purchaser thought it was worth. We actually were fairly successful with the first one. Then we had a Mother's Day flower give away asking for donations. Next a Father's Day tape measure give away. Then a Spaghetti Dinner. There also were some other minor fund raisers. We ended up raising over $1500 dollars.
Over the summer my wife and I reviewed the script deciding what stage directions were needed, what props, what costumes, and what set pieces. Then we recruited volunteers to make the set and props and costumes. We must have had about 20 adults working on various aspects during the summer.
In September we started recruiting children from the Sunday School to play various roles. We were surprised that not all the children wanted to participate but we did get 35 to sign up. After sign ups were done my wife and I assigned roles based on age and ability.
Rehearsal of lines started November 1 supervised by parent volunteers. By the end of November we started rehearsals in the Church - which is where it had been decided to hold the pageant. We had two full rehearsals in the church following Sunday services and a dress rehearsal on the Saturday morning prior to the performance.
The Pageant was held on Sunday following regular services. We had a group of volunteers prepare a lunch for all in attendance at church that Sunday. The congregation was at lunch while a group of men set up the stable, platform extension, curtain, lights, sound and arranged props. It was truly a team effort and brought together people that had not had contact with one another before. This was truly one of the great side accomplishments of this pageant.
The Pageant started at 12:30PM and lasted about 30 minutes. Although not everything went as planned the congregation enjoyed it and did not realize there were problems. The Pageant was followed by a dessert reception in our Parish Hall.
I hope I have not taken up too much of your time but thought you might be interested in what happened. The great things about this Pageant were the team effort and fantastic imaginations of members of our congregation. In fact some of the older members came to us afterward and said that we had ch alleged them beyond their expectations.
Thanks for your help.
I do have some pictures if you would like to see them I will try to get some of them together and email them to you.
If you want to share this with other churches that is fine with me.
Tom Rigg
trigger870@yahoo.com
December 2009
| 
