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Drama at Trinity
If you would like to get involved in any way, please contact Bob Sandine (288-6748) or Neil Olsen (874-4005), our resident author and dramaturg.
Liturgical, Chancel and Community Drama at Trinity
Drama has been a part of Trinity Players for a long time. In 1922 Trinity's Girl's Friendly Society organized a Passing Show at the Shubert theater with 250 local people performing songs and dances; it included a group Dutch children in wooden shoes, and according to the New Haven Evening Register of June 8, 1922, a "group of little girls in kilts who march like a Highland Regiment, all performed as a benefit for a home for "business girls".
When the Trinity Parish house was built in 1925 it included three four-room apartments, a gymnasium, kitchen, dining room, offices, and a really beautiful auditorium that seated 416; it was sold to Yale in 1980 and is now the Whitney Humanities Center (http://www.yale.edu/whc/). In addition to showing movies, the auditorium became the home of the first incarnation of Trinity Players. Growing out of the Youth Group and the Supper Club about the same time the Parish House was built in the mid-twenties, it put regular performances of community Theater. In the mid-thirties, along with the Trinity Young Men's Club, it mounted an antiwar play called The Grail, by Albert Mark Foster (an alias for Foster Furculowe), which stirred up a bit of local controversy at the time. In the following years Trinity organizations continued to use the Parish House for Theater; during the time Lawson Willard was rector (1940-1970), they mounted a production of a play by the rectors' neighbor and friend Thornton Wilder: we think the author of the most performed play of modern time attended and approved our offering of Our Town. Members of our Players group also found back behind the Clock in the rear of the Church an ancient (circa 1920's) carbon arch spot, indicting some dramas were performed in Church (at least the annual and venerable Christmas Pageant). But as drama in New Haven and Yale grew in professionalism, the need for community theaters correspondingly declined, and no records of performances exist between the fifties and the seventies.
In 1975 the modern Trinity Players was founded by the Rev. Robert Sandine and the Rev. Phil Weihe. The new idea was to present theater integrated into the liturgy by replacing the usual scripture-based sermon with a scripture-based "sermon drama". In addition to presenting Sermon Dramas integrated into the liturgy, and the occasional full length evening Chancel Drama, it sponsored the more secular productions of The Something Players, a Community Theater group that performed in the Trinity Parish House, the Trinity Church Nave, Eli Whitney's Barn, and in the "black box" theater in the Basement of The Church of the Redeemer after 1980 when the Parish House was sold to Yale. Trinity Players also typically takes their Sermon Drama on the road, performing each play twice at Trinity services, and typically two more times at other local churches, sometimes as far afield as Philadelphia. On two occasions it has competed with the traffic and bustle of the Green, and performed on the Church Apron just has its medieval predecessors must have done. It has also performed twice at the General Convention of the Episcopal Church.
Very soon after founding Trinity Players, Trinity Church helped found the community based theater group The Something Players as an outreach program to the larger New Haven Community. The community theater quickly took on a life of its own, and has performed many plays, with a mission that takes it beyond the typical community theater offering, including Oedipus Rex, As you Like It, The Lady's Not for Burning by Christoper Fry, and a number of original plays.
Lay Ministry through Drama
Why we do what we do
St Francis is reputed to have said, "Preach the Gospel every day, and if necessary, use words." From our indissoluble baptismal initiation by water and the Holy Spirit into the Church, we are commanded to "proclaim by word and example the Good News of God in Christ." Our incarnational Christian religion, and the Anglican Communion in particular, though founded on the Word made English, is also founded on the Word made flesh. And proclaiming "by word and example" is pretty much a definition of Drama. Or as 1 Corinthians 4:9 puts it (with a slightly unusual translation), "we have become a theatre to the world, to angels and to all humanity". With Drama, our lay people may preach the word to the people of the world, the words of a hidden God to the unconverted, the fallen off, and to the faithful, and obey the baptismal covenant's injunction to "do all in your power to support these persons in their life in Christ". Drama is one way those without, and sometimes even with, the gifts of vocation, preaching, singing, or wealth, may also preach the gospel, using action, scenery, lights, spectacle, and sometimes even using words.
Trinity Players
Trinity Players was formed in 1975 by members of the parish of Trinity Church on the Green, New Haven, Ct. Our aim is to present the gospel message in dramatic form, continuing a tradition of liturgical drama that began in the tenth century while enriching the worship experience within the traditional service.
Director and Author Neil Olsen from a June 1979 Performance on the Church Apron of Noah's Flood
Three or four times a year, the Trinity Players presents a liturgically integrated chancel Drama or Opera in place of the normal sermon. The work is inspired either by a scriptural passage or adapted from a classic Christian work of drama or literature. The dramas are frequently presented at other local churches upon invitation, as well as for local church festivals and public events, including "mission" performances on the noisy but vital New Haven Green. Some of the works were so popular that they were performed more than once over the 32 years of liturgical drama at Trinity.
Dramas 1975-2007
The mansion of Religious drama has many rooms, and many types of plays. There are liturgical dramas added to the existing service: these are known as tropes, and have been around ever since Bishop Ethelwold of Winchester scripted Quem Quaertas in 970 AD. These are sometimes called Lesson Dramas or Epistle dramas, and Trinity, in addition to the below, annually performs a children's Christmas pageant and on Palm Sunday an end of service trope describing the trial and death of Jesus. Chancel dramas are simply any drama performed in a chancel, and may be short or full length. Sermon dramas, unlike tropes, replace the sermon, with the same pedagogical intent of illuminating the scripture reading for the congregation.
Sermon Dramas:
Quem Quaeritis
Good News Tonight - words by Ivan Vasey, music by Philip and Sarah Wiehe
When the Angels Cried: Abraham and Isaac - adapted from the Legend of the Jews by Robert Sandine (photos here)
Scenes from Marriage - adapted from the works of various playwrights by Robert Sandine
Visitatio Sepulcher - from the Latin liturgical service
Christ in the Concrete City - by Philip Turner (performed twice)
Our Town, Act III - by Thornton Wilder
Let Man Live - by Par Lagerkvist
Grab and Grace - by Charles Williams (performed twice)
A Conversation Between Mary and the Angel Gabriel - words and music by Susan Bingham
Joesph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat - by Rice and Webber,
Sign of Jonah - by E. Rutenbern
The Grand Inquisitor - by Neil Olsen from Dostoevsky
Woman at Jacob's Well - words and music by Susan Bingham
Noah's Flood - Anonymous, modernized from the Coventry Pageant Play by Neil Olsen
The Beginning - by Arnold Thomas
The Raising of Lazarus - words and music by Susan Bingham
Return from Babel - by Neil Olsen (performed twice)
On the Road to Emmaus - words and music by Susan Bingham (performed twice)
The Babel Trilogy - by Neil Olsen (performed twice)
The Awakening - words by Neil Olsen, music by Susan Bingham (performed twice)
Simeon - words and music by Susan Bingham
The Potting Shed - adapted from Graham Greene's play by Neil Olsen
The Sacrifice of Isaac - words and music by Susan Bingham
The Rose Fire -based on The Princess and Curdie by George MacDonald by Neil Olsen
Ruth - words and music by Susan Bingham
Not for Death - by Neil Olsen
Golden Arches Golden Pipes: The first Hundred Years of Trinity Church - a history pageant by Neil Olsen
Holiday from Hell -adapted from C.S. Lewis's The Great Divorce by Neil Olsen
The Second Shepherd's Play - by the Wakefield Master from the Wakefield Mystery Play Cycle, modernized and cut to sermon length by Neil Olsen (photos here)
When the Angles Cried: the story of Abraham and Isaac from the Legends of the Jews - by Neil Olsen
A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to Jericho - by Tom Long, of Friends of the Groom
Fragments from The Balance - a play about Harry Croswell, by Neil Olsen
12 Hours of Daylight - by Laura Patrie
Lesson Dramas:
Park Benches, by John Hoda
Jacob, the fist play in English, Anonymous, modernized from the Wakefield Pageant Play by Neil Olsen
Oh, That Lazarus! Stewardship dinner theater by Neil Olsen
The Scallion, by Neil Olsen
Full Length or Productions outside the Service:
Noyes Fludde - an opera by Benjamin Britten (presented outside of the worship service.)
Readings or Planned Productions:
The Balance: the two stories of Harry Croswell - by Neil Olsen
Dulcitius - by Hortsvit of Gandershiem, translated and modernized by Neil Olsen
Nicene Noir - by Neil Olsen (planned for 2008 production)
Everyman's Isle - by Neil Olsen
Joint Productions with Something Players:
The Lark - Jean Anouilh, translated by Christopher Fry (presented outside the worship service in Trinity Church's chancel, twice)
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