Part 7 - Raising Tabitha by Jane And Mark Lewis

Contents

• Background
• Rating
• Characters
• Staging
• Script

Background

Then one of the series we were doing in our Family Services was on the life of Peter. As Peter was a "Northerner" (as far as those in Judea were concerned) we decided to write a series tenuously based on Coronation Street. As Peter lived in Capernaum, the title of Capernaum Street wasn't too difficult to come up with! We were then faced with the constraints familiar to many church drama groups - a lack of resources and a Hollywood special effects budget. These seem necessary given the miracles Peter witnessed. Then we had the idea - what if Peter "came home from work", as it were, from his "day job" as a disciple of Jesus to relay all his experiences to his wife Elizabeth (OK we made up the Elizabeth bit but we know Peter had a wife because he had a mother-in-law - see Mark 1:30). This would mean only two people were required and no special effects! 

Capernaum Street was born and the format has remained the same since. Each episode Peter returns from his day with Jesus to recount everything that's happened to Elizabeth in an "up-North"-kitchen-sink-type-Coronation-Street style.  In the later sketches (including this one), that occur after Jesus' ascension, we've slightly modified this format to adjust to Peter's new role.

The original version of this sketch is based on the events recorded in Acts 9:32-42 but also makes reference to the events of Acts 10 (as if this particular visit home was en route to Jerusalem as per Acts 11). However, as part of a series at church we were reprising a number of Capernaum Street sketches and writing some new ones.  Unfortunately the week we were due to perform this sketch we were away so we needed to come up with an alternative.  The result was a recorded webcast as if Peter and Elizabeth were sending a message back to their home church whilst away.  So we re-wrote the sketch accordingly and recorded the the video. You can watch the video here on YouTube. Note we also dropped the references to Cornelius as that was to be the subject the following week - see Capernaum Street 14 - Cornelius.

(Note: the Part numbers refer to the order the sketches were written in and not necessarily the order of events in Peter's life). 

Rating

Characters

• Peter, apostle of Jesus.
• Elizabeth, his wife.

Peter should be dressed to suggest "fisherman". (E.g. wellies, big woolly jumper, water-proof jacket, etc.) 
Elizabeth is a house-proud housewife and should be wearing a house-coat, have her hair in a scarf and have a duster to wave around for emphasis.
(Note: We've always stuck with the same costumes so that the characters are recognisable though by the later sketches from Acts it doesn't really fit with the situation).

Staging

We use three devices to create a consistent "look and feel" to the Capernaum Street sketches: 

• The characters are always dressed the same in every sketch (see above).
• For each performance we project the Capernaum St. sign (illustrated above) on an OHP.
• We use, what turned out to be, a very successful device for indicating the start and end of each sketch: the Theme Tune. We both play the first few bars of the theme tune to Coronation Street on kazoos.

Original Script

Webcast Script