Beneath the Upper Room

A
Maundy Thursday/Last Supper
Short Drama

by
Kevin M Reese

First Presented by Trinity United Methodist Church, Fort Dodge, IA on Maundy Thursday (April 13), 2006.

Running time:
Approx 25 min (not counting Communion)

CAST:

Production Schedule

Note about Production Schedule:  We really did only have 16 hours of rehearsal in 6 weeks.  If you have a director who is efficient and knows what s/he is doing, you can certainly use a similar schedule.  If, however, have a lot of inexperienced actors in your cast and/or have an inexperienced director, you should plan to rehearse 90 minutes per day instead of just 60.  Be careful not to burn your actors out early by rehearsing too long per session.  90 minutes per session is the maximum I would suggest for a 6+ week schedule.  The actors will appreciate your being considerate of their time commitment.  A more detailed Production Schedule is listed in the Director's Script for the show.

Setting: 
The kitchen where the women are preparing and serving the Passover Meal to the Disciples, who are in the Upper Room, just off from the kitchen. 

Plot:
Ezekiel, the servant to the owner of the Upper Room, invites us to the place where Jesus and his Disciples are to celebrate their Passover Meal (which will turn out to be his Last Supper).  There, in the kitchen, we see the women of Jesus' group busily preparing the traditional Passover Seder meal.  Course by course, they prepare the meal.  Course by course they serve the meal to the Disciples and return to the kitchen to report what they saw happening in the Upper Room-- and how it affects them.  The only Disciples we see are Judas and Peter as they pass through the kitchen on their way to the Upper Room.  The women sense that something is happening.  The play ends after Jesus and his Disciples have finished their meal, headed off to the Mount of Olives, and the women finish cleaning up.

This play is about Jesus from the perspective of the women who knew him best.  Through the well-known events of the Last Supper these women reflect on the life of Jesus and his affect on mankind.  We see the Last Supper from a different angle, from a different perspective than usually depicted in stories about this event in Jesus' Passion.

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A Note From the Playwright:

This is NOT your typical Last Supper Drama.  This play uses the well-known setting of Jesus’ Last Supper as a spring-board for a little different perspective– and a few "What ifs?" "Whys?" and "Why nots?" mixed in for good measure.

During Jesus’ time, it was usually women who served meals, did the laundry, fetched the water and all the other "menial" chores. From what we find in the Bible, there were a number of people who constantly traveled with Jesus, many of whom were women. Undoubtedly, those women took up the many caring tasks of the group. We know at least some of the names of the women who were there for the crucifixion. By a sort of "reverse engineering," it's a safe assumption that the characters in this play could very well have been around Jesus during the Last Supper.

That's what this play is all about.  Using the traditional Jewish Pesach Seder (Passover Ritual) that was most likely the same format that Jesus and his Disciples used, we follow the women as they serve each course and listen to what they witnessed as they were in the Upper Room. With humor and tenderness, we understand-- from their perspective-- the significance of Christ's last moments with his Disciples. 

At the time during the Seder where Jesus very likely passed around the Bread and the Wine, the audience is invited to partake in communion, after which, the play continues through to the end of the meal. 

 Produced by Special Arrangements with KMR Scripts
www.kmrscripts.com  

© 2006, Kevin M Reese.  All Rights Reserved.