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WHY PROPS?
     Many people have asked me, “Why do you enjoy working with props?” or “I don’t understand. How do you do this?” I just smile and say, “I’m called to it.” I guess I’d better begin at the beginning. I have worked in theatre most of my adult life. I’ve been involved in several community theatres across the country and I’ve also worked with many churches and Christian schools in their drama departments or music departments with skits, plays and dramatizations of contatas.      I remember vividly one church where I was working on a contata dramatization. The minister of music’s wife and I were busy blacking out the windows of the church for Sunday morning’s service when she turned to me and said “You know, Priscilla, I keep thinking if you’d never come to our church I wouldn’t be doing this right now.” I looked at her and said, “Yes, Lorraine, that’s true. You wouldn’t. But I’d be doing it no matter where I was.”

     When my husband’s vocation moved us to Glen Rose, Texas, we became members of a small Baptist church in the area. I was approached about helping the youth depict the Crusifixion of Jesus. I accepted. I had a script I had written and we began our journey. Everyone who worked with the production did so willingly and worked diligently. The show was a success. However, at the end of its performance, both the church and I knew that this church was not called to drama. I came away from the show asking God, “Where’s my place? Where do you want me to do what I do? You’ve called us to this little (There are only 5,000 people in the whole county.) place with no theatre.”

     I was totally unaware that our county was building a 3,000 seat amphitheatre and that a Christian production company had rented it to present a musical drama depicting the life of Jesus. Two weeks after I had questioned God about putting us in the middle of nowhere, I received a call from our church’s minister of music telling me that Michael Meece, the director of The Promise, would be holding auditions at area churches and would I consider autioning?

The Story Continues