Book Review: Into the Flames (& Other Plays on Saints' Lives)

 

My first experience of a children’s church play was at St. Nicholas in Shreveport, where my children got to participate in a play every December, for either St. Nicholas or for the Nativity. I was also blessed to spend a couple of years in Ann Arbor, Michigan at St. Vladimir Orthodox. Each year on their parish Feast Day, the children put on a play. It always impressed me afterwards how these kids could remember details from the stories, more than if they had only been taught a lesson. The plays enabled them to embody and absorb the stories.

I love plays!

That’s why I waited and waited (with no patience whatsoever) all summer to get my free preview copy of Into the Flames by Christine Siampos. And now I’m sharing my honest review with you. :)

I’m a drama teacher by trade, so I have opinions about drama, gained through years of putting on performances. I approached the book really hoping that I would be able to envision these plays being performed by regular kids, directed by regular parents and teachers, with easy props and costumes. 

It turns out that the playwright wrote these plays for the children in her own parish to perform, so she knows what it is like “in the trenches” of dealing with real children. She knew exactly how to write the script and adjust the directions for real kids. I could easily envision someone with no experience at all directing these plays, because the directions are so clear and easy to follow.

There is also room for options. A given play can be performed by six kids or by ten or more, depending on which of the options you choose. 

As I read through the plays, I imagined who might like to use them:

First, I want to share some ideas that might not immediately come to your mind. I think just the process of reading through and acting these plays out, scripts in hand, just for fun and not necessarily for a formal performance, could be fun:

Friends in the backyard

Babysitting job for a large family or during Mom’s Night Out

Childcare during a parish Retreat for adults 

Then, of course, there are the rehearse-and-perform venues: 

Special Feast Day performance at a parish

Sunday School classes

Vacation Church School

Summer Camp

Diocesan Conference Children’s Program

Classical School Drama Program (maybe not all the plays, but 

This new book of plays has so many possibilities. 

If you purchase five copies, Park End Books will allow you to make photocopies for the different children so they can highlight their lines and take home their scripts to practice, without fear of losing the playbooks.

I truly think this is a great resource for the Orthodox community and look forward to helping the children in my life perform some of these plays! Thank you, Christine Siampos and Park End Books!

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