Christmas Musical 2008 - His Story

This musical consists of 2 parts, From Heaven's Throne and Let All Heaven's Rejoice. Last year, we did part 1 - From Heaven's Throne. The whole musical was too short - only 40 minutes. This year, we decided to combine part 1 and 2 making it a total of 2 hours long. The committee realized that the musical was too long and decided to remove at least 3 songs from part 2 thus shortening the musical by 20 minutes.

We performed for 3 nights - 12, 13, 14 December 2008.

From Heaven's throne where angel Gabriel cam to visit Joseph and Mary.

In those days, Caesar Augustus issued a decree that a census should be taken of the entire Roman world. Joseph went to Bethlehem, the city of David, because he was the house and line of David.

There were no rooms in the inn. Joseph and Mary were led to a humble cattle stall.

The shepherds went to Bethlehem to see the Child, to meet the King.

King Herod was greatly disturbed when he heard that a new king was born.

Wise men came bearing gifts to baby Jesus.

30 years into the future, Jesus was baptized on the banks of the Jordan and went into the desert to seek the Lord in fasting and prayer. Satan came to tempt Jesus.

Jesus healed and touched many lives while he was on earth.

Last supper scene.

Garden of Gethsemane where Jesus prayed.

Jesus was brought before Pilate . The crowd that cheered "hosanna" was now calling for his death. Finding no fault in Jesus, Pilate yielded to their demands and tried to was his hands of an innocent man's blood.

Jesus was condemned to the cross.

3 days later, Jesus arose from the dead. Death couldn't even get a hold of him.

The Celebration. Every creature in Heaven and on earth and under the earth and on the sea, and all that is in them, singing : "To Him who sits on the throne and to the lamb be praise and honour and glory and power and majesty, forever and ever!"

On the 3rd night of the musical, after the performance, many casts and crews stayed back to tear down the wallpapers and clear the stage of props.

Four months of practices and hard work for three nights of performance. Suddenly it was all over. This is the longest musical ever and I'm sure many of us are not even thinking of planning another musical soon.... okay, right... this musical is not for us but to bring glory to God. To God be the glory!

After the Musical

Guess what we did after the musical?

Yes and no.

Yes, we had to clean up the stage area and keep the props back into the cabin and no, we did not do it immediately after the musical. Rachel and I were in Cameron Highlands (will blog about it later) the following 3 days after the musical.

Today, we scheduled a clean-up session and invited some youths to help us. Only Jian was able to make it. Others had plans and well... who would want to do all these hard work during the school holidays?!

Thank God for Jian (Jian -Now you know why I made chocolate brownies for you on Sunday.. hehe). He really helped us a lot. Esther helped for more than 2 hours (for that we were VERY grateful). I wanted the props to be wrapped with newspapers before putting them into the cabin. That took up most of our time.

As we were wrapping, Esther noticed that the fake blood was still wet. She asked us to be careful as it may stain our clothes.

By the time I finished wrapping the last of the props, it was already 4pm. At 2pm, Rachel went to the cabin to see if she could clean up a little before putting all the props in. Jian came back from lunch at 2.35pm and started helping Rachel. Both of them fitted all the props into the cabin. It was a hot day, but at least it wasn't burning hot.

There are 2 cabins seen in the picture above but we are given only 1 cabin for all our props. This was taken before Rachel cleaned up the cabin.

This was taken after Rachel cleaned up the cabin and put all the props in. I find no difference, before and after cleaning up the cabin. I have never stepped into the cabin today except to take pictures. Sigh.... Do you think I would arranged the props in a better way, so that it wouldn't look so untidy? Nah.. I think I would have thrown all the old papier-maches (wall paper) to create space for the new props.

The stage. We asked outsiders to tear down the stage.

The stage... at 5pm today. What are we going to do with the wood and planks? I don't know. Probably sell it off. If only we have enough space to recycle all the planks.

I still haven't blogged about the musical. I will.... one of these days. :)

Agape Gospel Assembly Presents...

It's gonna be a hectic weekend for all who are involved. :)

Rehearsal for the Christmas Musical

Last Sunday was our full-dress rehearsal for the musical. It was a hectic day and we were in church since 9.30am till about 10.30pm. Church service started from 9.30 am till about 11.15am then practice without make-up and costumes from 1pm till 3pm and then break for an hour. The rehearsal started at 4pm where all cast were "costumed", "made-up" and had their hair styled. The altar workers and ushers came dressed up for the rehearsal too.

There were so many scenes and so many movements from the cast that a comprehensive spreadsheet of movements for all cast members was prepared and pasted at every waiting station.

Praying for Satan.

Towards the end, Pastor Ben gave a short message and had an altar call. There were about 100 people who came to watch this rehearsal. Out of that 2 actually got saved. Praise the Lord!

The cast of this year's musical - HIS STORY.

More information on the musical -

Venue : Agape Gospel Assembly, Seremban
Time : 8pm - 10pm
Performance nights : 12 - 14 December 2008

For the Last Two Days.....

The last 2 days we were busy with the (apart from making the tree) stage and props work. Rachel took leave and asked some youths to come and help.

Annie and her students were given the task of painting the sea of Galilee.

Aunt Mary painted the stable scene.

Rachel supervised the amendments and deco of the stage.

The youths helped with painting the props. I really thank God for the youths. They willingly gave their time to help us and they were only too happy to help. God bless them. :)

Stage Dressing - Day 2

Yesterday was Stage Dressing - Day 2. My parents, A.Chris, Brian and some of the youths came to help again.

Our goal was to cover the tomb with old "wallpapers" and line the top with "clouds" (of fibre). I thought the youths did a pretty good job. I remembered last year, we took 2 days to complete this task. The youths did it in 5 hours.

Rachel, Caryn and my mom did the touch up for the brick walls and doors.

The sky and cross scene were painted by Aunt Mary. She is really good at painting. Such a blessing to have her. The bricks and door "wallpapers" were painted by Rachel and her team. Most of them were painted last year. We reused the wallpapers and just touched up certain weak areas.

A closer look at the "building". Looked as if we painted some green to make it "mossy", but no, we did not use green paint. It was the combination of lights from various sources.

We did manage to create and paint more papier-mached pots. I now have enough to sell in the market place. :)

We ended early. By 3.45pm we started cleaning the stage area. Rachel and I left the church building at 4.40pm and headed to town to buy baskets to use as props and later rewarded ourselves with a drink and roti canai (Indian bread) at Top Curry House for a good day's work.

Stage Dressing - Day 1

On Sunday, we took out all the props and papier -mached wallpaper in preparation for Tuesday's stage dressing. After 1 year of storing it in the cabin, the props and wallpaper were filthy. We called a few guys to help us transfer them to the educational block.

Yesterday, we started the dressing up the stage. Rachel kept last year's (and year before last too) wallpaper and we decided to use it for this year's musical. First we sorted out the different toned "walls", then we placed them onto the makeshift stage.

We had a lot of help especially from the youths. About 15 of us helped either at the stage section or creating and painting the props.

My parents helped a lot by making papier-mached vases and clay pots. They did this last week and yesterday a few of us painted them.

Tomorrow will be the 2nd Day of Stage Dressing. We hoped to complete covering the stage with wallpapers (1/4 more to go) and then concentrate on creating clouds with fibre.

Painting the Stage

Today a group of us will be painting the stage for our coming Musical. Everyone who signed up for stage and props department have to help out, and as many as 15 will be present today. Let's hope we can finish what we have set out to accomplish today.

No time to write more....

Mock-Up Stage

This week was a hectic week for my sister. She had to do the mock-up stage for the Christmas Musical 2008. She's a very last minute person and for her to create a mock-up stage in September is really amazing. The other committee must have push her hard to come out with one this week.

She started on Monday cutting out the cardboard and styrofoam, measuring and designing the stage to fit 12 different scenes. Yesterday, she painted it with simple strokes.

So here's a glimpse of the stage. It's(the stage set up) gonna be something like the 2006 Easter Musical (Entitled "Believe").

2007 -Christmas Musical "Heaven's Throne"

Many of us were surprised when the committee announce that there would be a Christmas musical this year. We have not done a Christmas musical for a long long time.

The choir and drama members started practising in September. Many had to sacrificed their time, including students who sat for their PMR and SPM examinations in Sep/Oct/Nov.

The volunteers were required to sign up under these departments - 1)Costume 2)Make-Up, 3)Stage, Production & Props 4)Publicity & Awareness 5)Grounds & Deco 6)Hospitality & Food 7)Lights & Special Effects 8)Sound System (That's all I can think of at the moment)

The existing departments involved - 1)Choir 2)Drama 3)Dance 4)Usher

I got involved the the Stage and Production, simply because Sharon and Rachel were in charged. It was easy to work with them. Rachel did a mock-up stage and the committee approved. There were many volunteers for this department. The teenagers and older adults were so helpful.

In every musical we learn more about each other. We spend more time together and even as we bond with one another, our relationship with God become closer. We do this all for His glory.

Easter Musical 2006 "BELIEVE"

Our biggest production ever. This musical is talks about the life of Jesus through the eyes of 5 different people. Mary the mother of Jesus, John and Thomas-disciples of Christ, Pilate-Roman governor of Judea who ordered the crucifixion of Jesus and Caiaphas, the high priest of Jerusalem who sent Jesus to Pilate for sentencing.

The picture speaks for itself. We had professionals and non professionals working behind the scenes. Many took time off from work to help out in this musical.

Each of us contributed our talents and time willingly. Everyone worked hard. The traffic control personnels were in for a surprise. It was raining (all three nights if I remember correctly), and they were prepared with rain coats and umbrella. Bad weather didn't dither people from coming. In fact there were so many people that the main gates had to be closed. Still some climbed over the gates.

Stage and backdrop. Uncle Lim was in-charged of the concept of the stage. Rachel & Sharon helped with the stage and backdrops.

1) Mary (Played by Mary)
2) John (Played by Michael)
3) Narrator (Narrated by Stephany)
4) Narrator (Narrated by Dr Richard)
5) Pilate (Played by Kelvin)
6) Caiaphas (Played by Chen Tee Shaw)
7) Thomas (Doubting Thomas) (Played by Thompson)
8) Jesus (Played by Edwin)
9) Coordinator of this musical (F.C.)