Church comedy skits and dramas may be amateur productions, but they don’t have to be amateurish. There are many talented professionals in your christian mysticism for you to call on. They may not be professional comedians, but they can still be funny. Other professionals in your church can provide resources as well to produce highly polished, professional church comedy productions.
In one script that I wrote and directed, a church member who was a commercial, graphic designer created a set design that far surpassed what a local professional scene designer accomplished. He also produced all the visual marketing material. And another church member who owned a local manufacturing company made a fake display of elevators that supported the event.
During the night of the production, guests that didn’t attend the church tried to use them. Now that was funny!
Use these tips to guide your efforts that result in church productions that make a spiritual impact.
Decide on a Theme for Your Church Comedy Drama
Whether it’s a 4-5 minute skit or a full play, start with the theme. Write it down in one or two sentences. If you start writing your script without nailing down the theme, you may write funny jokes just to get a laugh. It’s a common trap for those who enjoy writing comedy.
Humor is extremely effective when writing church comedy skits and drama. But in a church context, it should always focus on making a spiritual point. So be clear at the start what that spiritual point is and keep that target always before you.
For example, in my one-act, church comedy drama, What’s In a Promise? the theme is… God made a promise to us that He kept, so we should keep the promises we make. The entire church comedy script is written to support that theme and the resolution supports it too.
Write Church Comedy Characters to Match Your Actors
Professional actors are skilled at changing their persona to match a variety of different funny characters. Their professional career depends on the ability to be versatile. You give them a funny character and that’s who they become.
In church comedy, you’re mostly working with amateur actors. Although, there are many people in your congregation with natural comedy acting abilities too. It’s just not what they do all the time, so they’re not as versatile in portraying humorous characters as a professional actor. They tend to have a few, funny personas where they excel, but as they move away from characters that are natural for them, they become more stilted.
So rather than create funny characters and then ask your actors to portray them, create humor that is tailored to the natural strengths of your actors. In other words, think of the natural abilities and personalities of the people you want to use as actors, and then create comedy characters and humor that feature their strengths.
Does someone have a funny, foreign accent? Can they impersonate someone famous? Do they have a natural tendency you can exaggerate to create humor? The more you capitalize on their natural, humorous abilities, the more natural and funnier they will be.
