Photo of Birmingham, Alabama-based Church of the Highlands, courtesy of Kellen Jacob Photography.
Most of the calls I get around this time of year are from small houses of worship trying to find ideas on creating a holiday production on small budgets. Fortunately, modern technology has made it easier and affordable to create smaller budget productions that look expensive. This article offers a few tips on how you can make your holiday production look great without spending a lot of time and money.
In approaching your particular project, it is important to realize that your congregation is used to seeing the same basic staging and lighting all year during regularly scheduled worship services. So the most effective thing you can do is to shake it up a bit is to present a stage that looks different. This can be accomplished very effectively through both staging and lighting.
Installing simple additional platforming can go a long way to creating a more intimate experience for your congregation. Platforms added to the front of the existing stage area can bring the worship team and performers closer to the congregation. This extra staging could accommodate worship singers, dancers musicians and set pieces. You can also add levels onto your existing stage. This helps separate the chorus and the band from the performers. Level changes have a powerful affect on the audience, and creates variety in staging.
You may also need extra staging for an expanded worship orchestra. Musicians seem to take up a lot of room, so it's best to overestimate the amount of stage space needed. A good suggestion is to map out this space with the band leader and the musicians so that last minute space crisis can be avoided.
You can either purchase or build these added platform risers. Aluminum risers are more expensive than wood risers, but they are a great investment, as they will last for many years. Wood risers can be built for less money, but they are extremely heavy, difficult to move and store, are often noisy to walk on, and will not last as long. Aluminum risers come in standard sizes and heights, and can be adjusted into different configurations from year to year.
Understand that when you add stage platforms, you also need to provide lighting for these areas. The possibilities change with every unique application. In most cases, temporary lighting positions and lighting fixtures can be installed to accommodate this extra room. However, before you start adding lighting positions, make sure you consult with qualified lighting, structural and electrical professionals to see if it is possible (and meets with local building and safety codes). You would not want to inadvertently create a safety hazard.
Another effective design choice is to hang fabric behind the staging area. Fabric can serve many functions. Primarily, it serves as an interesting background to the performers standing in front of it. Fabric comes in many colors and textures. There are shiny satin textures and very rough burlap textures. There is even fabric that reflects sparkles in several colors. Some scrim fabric can be lit from the front and rear, creating opaque images on the front, and when lit from behind, magically revealing objects and people behind it. This "bleed through" effect has been used for many years in the theatre and is always impressive.
Rose Brand has a very large selection of colors and textures, but there are other worthy suppliers. Be sure to specify that the fabric you use is flame-proofed. Large theatrical fabric companies are familiar with this requirement, but you must specify it for it to be done.
You can also project images from lighting fixtures or video projectors onto most types of fabric. This will offer you a remarkable amount of flexibility to change the background from scene to scene. This flexibility, along with its modest cost, may be the best reason to use theatrical fabric as your background. Most likely, you can incorporate your existing video projectors to accomplish this effect. If not you can rent (or purchase) more powerful video projectors that are dedicated for scenic projection. You can use a simple program like PowerPoint to project slides of background images onto the fabric. More powerful media server hardware and software programs are available to accomplish more sophisticated video effects, but this comes with a premium of price and software expertise.
Speaking of lighting, the holidays are a great time to change those gels in your theatrical lighting fixtures from that boring white light that you use for your services to the deep rich colors of the holidays. This is one of the reasons why I specify lighting fixtures and systems that allow a quick change of lighting color. This also gives you a great amount of flexibility in changing things up for the holidays. You can also change the colors in your house lights to something more festive. LED house light fixtures are quite useful in accomplishing this.
Speaking of LEDs, this technology is becoming very affordable. A roll of RGB LED tape can be a cheap. You can place LED tape anywhere; on sets, onto costumes, behind open weave fabric, even hanging in the air. One of my favorite techniques is to hang LED tape vertically from the ceiling in long strands. By using this technique you can create powerful multi-colored blinking star effects above the stage and the congregation. This is a spectacular effect in a darkened sanctuary.
But even with the most sophisticated technology, the most important thing you can do this time of year is to create a beautiful holiday production --- something different that people will remember and may help get them to come back the next week. A little creativity can go a long way in telling the story that you wish to convey. Think "out of the box" and experiment. You may just find an effect that looks like a million dollars, and help drive home the message of the holiday Spirit in your congregation.
Editor's Note: This article was originally published in 2014. It's solid information that is as applicable today as it was when originally written.
