If you go
* What: “His Story” life of Christ pageant.* When: 7 p.m. today, 10:45 a.m. and 3 p.m. Sunday.* Where: Soddy-Daisy First Baptist Church, 10185 Dayton Pike, Soddy-Daisy.* Admission: Free. (Tickets available at Floyd Hardware and Home Folks Restaurant in Soddy-Daisy, Lifeway Christian Store in Hixson and Chick-fil-A locations in Chattanooga and Hixson.)* Phone: 423-332-2814.* Website: www.fbcsoddydaisy.com.
SonRise tickets will beavailable Monday
Collegedale Seventh-day Adventist Church will distribute tickets for its SonRise Resurrection Pageant beginning at 7 a.m. Monday at Hamilton Place, 2100 Hamilton Place Blvd. The walk-through pageant, to be presented Saturday, April 15, depicts Christ’s final days leading to his death and resurrection. More than 500 Southern Adventist University students and church members take part. Admission is free, but tickets are required. Tickets will be available on the second floor in front of the JC Penney store. Tickets are limited to no more than seven per family. The person picking up tickets must be at least 16 years old. A ticket is not required for children 6 or younger. For more information, visit www.collegedalechurch.com/sonrise.
The cast and choir have been practicing since January for the Easter pageant Soddy-Daisy First Baptist Church is presenting this weekend. If all goes as rehearsed, the singers and actors will find their marks, know their lines, deliver moving renditions of songs.
The bigger question is how the four-legged extras will do. But at Wednesday night's dress rehearsal, the sheep, goats and donkey hit their cues, whether carried in by the pageant's villagers or bearing the actor playing Jesus.
It's an ambitious undertaking for the 350-member church, but worship minister Bobby Boutwell says the annual production is a central way for the church "to reach out into our community with a message of Jesus Christ."
In addition to the audiences drawn in from the community, Boutwell opens the music, drama and crew responsibilities to anyone who wants to take part.
"We have singers coming from other churches. We take anyone [who wants to get involved]. I don't know how many other churches are represented up there, but there are a few."
Friends from other states return each year in key roles, and their participation necessitates the early run date since they'll need to be at their own churches for Holy Week. Ruth Ann Goodwin from Houston, Texas, directs the production. Hal McIntosh, a music minister from South Carolina and professional opera singer, narrates the story, assuming a different persona each year.
"I've been Peter, John, Nicodemus," he explains. The perspective may change, he says, but through his character he's "always telling the most important story to be told."
Presenting a life of Christ pageant is an Easter tradition at the church, a commanding red brick structure with grand white columns and stained-glass windows on a hill overlooking Dayton Pike and Sequoyah Road. Before Boutwell arrived in 2003, members had offered a drive-through story. Boutwell, who had been doing pageants at his former church in South Carolina, moved the production inside. Animals and all.
This year's production, "His Story," tells Christ's story through the eyes of the apostle Thomas, played by McIntosh, who would have preferred another nickname over "Doubting Thomas," the audience will learn.
Maybe the "Incredibly Talented, Ridiculously Handsome Thomas," the character quips, apologizing that he's not one of the better-known "A-list disciples like John, Paul or Ringo."
Gentle humor may begin the performance, but soon the very serious story of Christ's life unfolds. As the title implies, "His Story" depicts the life of Christ from birth to crucifixion. But of course the story doesn't end there. His resurrection and ascension are the triumphant closing scenes.
Boutwell says there have been "lots of changes this year" in the script and the front-end depictions of Christ's ministry.
"We try to find new stuff and insert that, but there's some songs that we just can't find anything any better," he explains. "Like the trial and 'Behold the Lamb,'" he says of a scene and song that are too good together to change.
"That's like our national anthem," he says. "It stays in there every year."
Unlike director Mel Gibson's 2004 film, "The Passion of the Christ," which earned an R rating for its explicit violence, nothing here is overly graphic. Still, some scenes provoke visceral reactions, even in rehearsals for the handful of people involved as support staff who find seats to watch the play expand during tech week.
"Make no mistake, it's a worship experience out here every night," Goodwin tells the cast. "They're already sniffling out here."
And that is ultimately why 125 cast members rehearse for three months. Why 15 musicians, led by Boutwell, crowd into an orchestra pit. Why crew members hang lights, build sets, find fog machines, wrangle live animals.
"Every time we do it, it's to share the message of Christ," says Pastor Seton Tomyn, who appears in crowd scenes and, with a costume change, as Pontius Pilate, the judge who authorizes Christ's crucifixion.
"We may change the production," he says, "but the [central] story doesn't change."
Contact Lisa Denton at ldenton@timesfreepress.com or 423-757-6281.