Community plays and the Christmas holiday

        I have always wanted to act in a community play, but being in the newspaper business and working a day job has put the brakes on that undertaking for now.
      I’m sure acting in a community play is fun but with it comes a lot of work from learning the lines, attending practices and then putting on the performances for several evenings.
        Anyway, I have it on my bucket list for down the road.
      Maybe after I fully retire, I will be trying out my acting talents in a local production. Retire! I’ve already retired once, but for only a year. I’m working more now than I was before retiring.
       I’m a people person and I love to make people laugh. I’m hoping to make my acting debut soon.
      Anyway, I recently attended the Brooklyn Community Theatre production of “A Carol Play,” a one-act, faith-based play written and directed by Josh Gerard, the Brooklyn Librarian and local minister.
       The performance was about a director on the eve of the big Christmas play who had entirely forgotten the reason for the season. As with the popular “Christmas Carol,” the director is visited by the ghosts of Christmas plays past, present and future.
      It was an upbeat and delightful production and brought many laughs from the audience at the Brooklyn Opera House.
      After writing and directing several faith-based plays, Gerard said he found himself becoming a demanding perfectionist and started forgetting the message behind them.
     “This play shows how ugly we can let ourselves become when we forget grace and chase after unattainable perfection,” he said in an interview.
      Gerard has written eight plays and a musical, saying what he loves about writing is how he is able to put his sense of humor into his work.
      The cast, which was a mixture of adults and local students, did a great job and put a different spin on a well-known Christmas production.
     I have covered numerous school and community plays throughout my journalistic career. They all have been enjoyable and the acting has been outstanding. Young people these days are so talented.
     I wasn’t too involved in acting or participated in much of anything when I was in school. I was good about going to school, but being involved was not my strong point. 
    I did play the part of a snowman in sixth grade. My mom made me a dress-like snowman costume from a white bed sheet. It wasn’t fancy and it didn’t have any hoops to make me look robust and round like a real snowman. I showed up with what I had and did a fine job. I doesn’t take a whole lot of talent to stand in the same place and say nothing.
    I’ve had other small non-speaking roles in several church productions through the years. I carried presents and placed them around the tree in tenth grade in a Living Christmas Tree production at the First Baptist Church in my hometown of Tulsa.
    And while in college at the University of Missouri-Columbia, I played a part in an Easter production at my church in Columbia some years back.
    Anyway, I hope you enjoyed a wonderful and blessed Christmas with your family and friends. In spite of the rough patch of weather, this Christmas was one of the best in the Parker household. It was so good to be with family during this time of the year.
    As we all look to the New Year, I hope you take time to reflect on your many blessings and keep your focus, dreams and resolutions on the positive and being difference makers in your neighborhood, community, town, city and in all you do.
    Have a great week and always remember that “Good Things are Happening,” every day and always.