December 2004

Dear Friends & Supporters,

Greetings from all of us at Gospel Rocky Theatre Co. It’s been a busy and very enjoyable 6 months since I last wrote to you, and as you’ll see we’ve had a great time sharing about Jesus in our own inimitable style!

Why not take a look at the website, Carl has been working on the site recently to freshen it up and develop ways to make it more useful and child friendly, with potential to do a children’s version of Church Army’s Word on the Web (daily e-mail bible notes.) Wouldn’t it be great for kids to get a friendly thought for the day from Rocky?

Events

We did quite a bit of travelling during the past few months! Here are a few of the highlights:

July - Southport - “Summer Fire”
We travelled to Southport to take part in the Methodist “Summer Fire” bible week leading a Saturday afternoon family event held in a 500 seat marquee. The theme was “working with God in a broken world”. We led the family audience in thinking and praying about children in other countries, focussing on a BBC Newsround documentary clip I managed to tape which featured the children on both sides of the new wall built between Israelies and Palestinians.

August- London – “Soul in the City"
We went to Holy Trinity C of E Church in Wandsworth, south west London to take part in “Soul in the City”, a huge mission happening in literally hundreds of churches in London at the same time. We provided an entertaining gospel finale to a children’s week run by the local church and helped by volunteers from around the UK.

September- Grimsby - 3:16 Project Bus Launch
Rocky and the Rocky Kids visited the Willows council estate in Grimsby where the Bishop of Lincoln, Rt Rev John Saxbee launched Church Army’s 3:16 youth project - a double-decker bus serving as an innovative youth church equipped with Playstation consoles, computers, DVDs and music mixing decks. Bishop John pointed out; “Church Army is a real gift to the church - they take risks for the Gospel by thinking and working outside the box. They do things in the community and get involved when sometimes the church is slow to react. The 3:16 youth bus is a fantastic gift for the people of this estate and it is incredible that Church Army has responded so positively to the challenge of youth ministry here.”

September - Coventry - Family Fun Day
We led a special afternoon for the congregation of St. Mary Magdalene with Risen Christ in Wyken, Coventry. The afternoon started with fun and games outside of the church where families gathered together around a large parachute. The event then continued inside the church with drama, song and dance. At one point the whole of the congregation were encouraged to get to their feet and conga around the church as we sang ‘We want to see Jesus lifted high’.

October – St.Leonard’s Bilston “We are family” weekend
Music, dance, arts & crafts and all kinds of workshops including making Rocky models made this a wonderful and well attended follow up event to our first visit last year. One of the most exciting developments here in the past 12 months has been the starting up of a weekly Bilston Rocky Kids Club. Over 50 children are on the register with anything from a dozen to two dozen children meeting together every Tuesday for fun, games and drama. One of the highlights of the weekend event was the performance by the club of a mini musical based on the story of the prodigal son. A few weeks before the weekend the Bilston club had also visited our Rocky Kids at the Queens Theatre to rehearse some dance routines together. We included these in the Saturday night performance by Rocky and Co. We would like to see many such clubs and are working with the Bilston leaders to develop resources using their club as a pilot.

Theatres

Our performance scheduled for the 1200 seat Grimsby Auditorium in November had to be cancelled a week before the show due to poor ticket sales. This was a great disappointment for the organisers and for us as we had been rehearsing hard in preparation. But working together with the theatre management we have been able to reschedule at no extra charge to ourselves, we did however make a loss on publicity. It does bring home again how difficult it can be to “sell” a show, particularly when you are unknown, and we are fighting against a mentality that thinks “Christian” means “not very professional”. Our experience is that once people have seen us they wish they had brought others with them.

The new performance date for Grimsby is 20th March 2005. Shortly after this we are to play the Broxbourne Civic Theatre, Hoddesdon, on 11th April. We are also working at getting other bookings around the UK for 2005, as well as performing the new Rocky show at our base in the Queen’s Theatre. More about that in a moment…

Re:act

As you know, this event at the Queen’s Theatre is a collaboration between ourselves, North Staffs Youth for Christ and a group of children’s workers from churches in Stoke-on-Trent . Our aim is to stage a regular professional children’s event with worship in lots of forms - dance, music, Bible teaching, drama, prayer, games, discussions, & various workshops.

Re:act 2 explored the theme “ Don’t worry” through various multi- media including Rocky and the Rocky Kids performing their “don’t worry” routine and our Goliath school assembly sketch. Overall the event built on our experience from last time and made vast improvements with practical & technical delivery problems experienced first time round. It was a truly uplifting time. However, we were down by half on numbers attending, and this is leading us to question how we proceed. We do have to hire the theatre for this event, and could not continue to do so if people don’t come.

We have a meeting early in the new year to discuss the way forward for Re:act 3 which will be around Easter time. I must emphasize that those who did come had a wonderful time and the feedback has been tremendous, especially from the children.

We’ve literally had a smashing time this Autumn term as we’ve taken our new assembly around our 12 schools.
The theme was “Love your neighbour as yourself” – including looking after other people’s things. Again a lot of fun as Carl & Mary broke a much loved vase and an original painting of Carl’s pet elephant in a lovely gold frame, and then had to apologise to each other. This was all being “filmed” by Rocky on his video camera and ended with literally a “You’ve Been Framed” moment where a teacher in each school acts as a stuntman / stand in for Carl and has the painting smashed over their head by Mary. The children find this hilarious of course and the teacher remains unharmed (risk assessment having been carried out!). We’ve also just been asked to visit a new school starting next year.

New show for 2005 - 'Rocky in Space

Ready to launch! The Queen’s Theatre Burslem from 29th June – 3rd July 2005

We’ve booked the dates so now it’s time to get serious! We’ll be having a read through of the new script (which I’m busy writing) in December, and start rehearsals in the Spring. The idea that I'm working on is to touch on various Biblical themes with a main link to the Old Testament story of Jonah. However, it’s not set in the belly of a whale but in outer space! Gospel Rocky and his Rocky Kids visit another planet in danger of being destroyed by a black hole - a consequence of the way the aliens who live there have been treating each other. Rocky and the Rocky Kids visit the planet and share the message of God’s love through music and drama. The aliens change their ways and start being kind and helpful to each other and the catastrophe is averted.

To involve even more children we thought we’d invite the schools we work with to be involved. As you know, our school assemblies aim to teach RE (Christianity predominantly) in a fun way through the performing arts. Now that we are based in a real theatre, we’ve got an opportunity to link RE and Drama (and Science and Arts & Crafts in this case) in an exciting way which involves children hands on. The good news is that so far 5 schools have taken up our offer and will each be taking part in one performance. They will provide the aliens who inhabit the planet Rocky visits! The children will take part in the second act after the interval in a scene set on their planet. They will decide the name of their planet, what the aliens look like, what they call themselves, how they move and communicate and design and make costumes to be worn in the show. So every performance will be totally different! It’s quite a commitment for the schools requiring rehearsal time etc. but I’m pleased that they feel confident in us and the quality of the work we do, that their children will enjoy a great theatrical experience and benefit educationally and spiritually.

RSVPsalm CD & multi – media presentation

Throughout the year I’ve been recording a CD of my songs based on the psalms from the RSV bible. The good news is that it will be on sale from January, and I’m really, really pleased with it! It’s selling for a minimum donation of just £10.00 (plus £2.00 p&p), but you can of course pay more for it and we won’t mind at all! – because ALL proceeds from the sale are going directly to support the work of Gospel Rocky. As they say, why not order a copy TODAY by filling in the enclosed form. I’m also working on a multi-media presentation of the CD called “Psalm” with a date set in April at our church for a first performance. Once we’ve tried it out we may do a tour of churches, but I’d really love to offer our ideas to others to put on their own Psalm event in their own church. I think it will prove to be not only a hugely uplifting and inspirational event for all who take part and come to see it, but also a great way to raise money for Gospel Rocky through ticket sales.

Thank you

Thanks for taking the time to read our news. I hope you have enjoyed it and will want to keep up to date with Rocky. If for any reason you do not wish to continue hearing from us please let us know and we’ll remove you from our mailing list. As I always say in these letters, thank you for your prayers and financial support. Carl, Mary, me and the theatre company really appreciate your interest and include you in our prayers. If any of you would like us to pray with you about a specific issue please let us know. On behalf of everyone here at Gospel Rocky, God bless, and have a great Christmas!

Yours sincerely,

Director
Gospel Rocky Theatre Company

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