PROJECTS IN DEVELOPMENT
Hollywood Shows:
The Storyteller Stories to Camera, by Billy Angel
The first season of The StoryTeller has been completed, and can now be seen on RedeemTV.com, free of charge.
Season 2, 3 & 4 based on the Stories of the New Testament are now in preparation; this work will take a few years to complete.
The vision is to, eventually, go back to the stories of the Old Testament in seasons 5, 6 & 7.
The video below gives a compilation of Billy Angel's story telling as Rafael in Gideon season of Jacob's Ladder TV series.
The People of the Book Cinematic TV series on O.T. Stories
The Mysteries Theater Shows (x3) with songs, based on the Gospel
The Mysteries is a set of 3 Theater Shows, the Nativity, the Passion, & the Revolution.
Stage ‘language’ includes symbolism, gesture, visual artistry, rhythm, sound & movement, songs, dreams, visions, chorus, all done on different stages etc.; all these elements lend themselves well for portraying ‘spirit life’.
I sense that the focus of this work is not so much a ‘teaching’ focus; nor do we try to be complete (i.e.present all of Jesus’s teaching, all of his parables). The 3 shows are more about giving the audience an EXPERIENCE that some will describe as ‘a spiritual experience’. We want to see people’s hearts touched (through the music & songs etc.) while they’re being captivated by a powerful theatrical show and a strong story. The story moves forward with good speed, through all 3 shows, the Nativity, the Passion, and the Revolution.
The first show, the Nativity, covers story-moments from the Old Testament, prophetic scriptures, and O.T. references to the Messiah’s Coming; the birth of Jesus, and much of His ministry years.
The second show, the Passion, covers the last part of Jesus’s ministry, the Passion, as well as the Resurrection, the Ascension and Pentecost.
The third show, the Revolution, covers the birth of the church and the spread of the gospel to other cities, including cities in other countries. It covers the stories of both Peter and Paul traveling to preach the word. Paul ends-up in Rome where he writes the letters that are now in the New Testament. The production covers stories that follow the burning-of-Rome, through to the empire eventually embracing the Christian Faith as the state-religion.
Through storytelling, theatrical tableaux and other means, broad lines of early church history, good and bad, are staged; plus story-links to connect first & second century events with the present day, ending with celebrating the expected return of the Savior, the second coming.
We prepare these productions to be performed in the theater in a schedule that allows for all three shows to be presented within the same year. Once a show-run is finished, the production turns to filming. The Theater Building becomes the Film Studio, and the show is filmed, using creative ways of acting & filming, and extending the script (x3) in certain places etc. After that, on to the next show!
These Mystery Plays are performed by (1) an actors ensemble (who are also singers), (2) a mime-dance group (who are also good with vocal sounds), (3) a small band, and (4) two story-tellers. Sometimes it works well to let the members of the actors-ensemble become TELLERS for a short period of time.
The lead Storyteller will be the HOST of the event; this teller represents God-in-heaven. There is a second storyteller who is younger than the lead-teller. Together these two tellers represent the Father and the Son. The younger teller will take on the (impossible) role of Jesus (grown-up); the role of Jesus features in all three shows.
The aim as this show (x3) is being written, is to present strong scripts and great music to the world; scripts of 3 brand new Mystery Plays (altogether called: The Mysteries), and a collection of great songs. The hope is that this triple THEATER show will be(come) a popular re-interpretation of the Good-News Story, engaging, moving, powerful. Some company/ ministry may set-up it’s own infra-structure around the world, and work together with other (national) organizations, to bring this work in multiple languages to the general public in 100 capital cities (of 100 countries).
The Mysteries (x3) will be powerful theatre including music & songs that touch people’s hearts while, at the same time, the story of redemption through Jesus is clearly communicated.
Billy Angel aims to spend periods of time writing outlines for the 3 Mystery shows. After that, a lyricist and a musician will be brought into the project to begin song-writing. The process of finding those may involve some kind of extensive search. A second script writer, to assist Billy Angel, should also be brought into the project. Provided sufficient funding at this early stage, there’ll be four writers in total, a lyricist, a musician, and two drama-writers (Billy Angel included).
Armed with at least a few songs, an outline for each show, and a few scenes written out, the process will begin of approaching producers and others to find financial backing. More funding will allow for more writing. Eventually it will be time to plan the production of the show (x3), including the filming.
CELEBRATION A TV series on the Staging of a Gospel Show
CELEBRATION is a TV series with possibly 5-7 seasons. The PREMISE of the show is ‘how a modern small-town in the south of the USA stages Biblical stories from both the Old and the New Testaments’.
The staging is being done interior and exterior in and around town; it will take the town a long time, a few years at least, to work through all the Biblical stories that they want to portray. They are in no rush. At regular intervals the town puts on the next ‘show’ and as soon as that is over, the people start working on their next presentation (of Biblical stories).
The town folks will start at the beginning: the creation, Adam & Eve, the fall, Cain & Abel etc.
The idea is to present certain themes and to include those stories that touch on those themes.
Part of the town’s presentation is ‘Biblical Storytelling’ where the members of the cast walk into the audience, and, as each player gathers a group of people around them, they TELL the next part of the story.
It will be crucial to figure the right balance between the 2 realities,‘what goes on in town’ with ‘what happens in the Biblical story’. That balance will change depending on the Biblical story and how the town handles the story. Obviously, all of this is written by the writers of the show.
It could be that, at some point an entire episode is about the towns folk working through their differences, or facing serious obstacles in how to interpret and stage the next Biblical story. There may also be episodes that focus largely on the Biblical story. We should have and keep the liberty to make these swings; an important part of this concept
For me, the strength of the concept is that the towns folk will (have to) find simple ways of portraying the Biblical story, and that their inherited pre-conceptions about all the Bible stories will constantly be challenged, hopefully in light-hearted ways for much of the time.
The video below is a 3 minute promo on Jacob's Ladder drama series, Gideon season.
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