Reader’s Theater

One Lent, I looked everywhere for a Reader’s Theater rendering of St. Matthew’s Passion Narrative.  I was unsuccessful, so I wrote my own script, which you can download here.  In subsequent years, I reworked the script to follow the Passion Narrative found in St. Mark’s and St. Luke’s Gospels.  I post them here in the hopes that if someone else is hunting online they might stumble across them and find them useful. Click the links below to download the files.

Reader’s Theater Matthew Passion

Reader’s Theater Mark

Reader’s Theater Luke 22v39-23v56

A few notes about the readings:

The script has four parts, preferably two female (1.2) and two male (3.4) readers.  The congregation plays the part of the crowd and can be prompted by the reader to join in the drama.  Also note that the congregation stands when the people come to Golgotha.

If the division of parts is confusing, it may help to think of this as a fast-paced narrative, almost as though the different readers are stumbling over one another and cutting each other off to tell the story.