Nativity Play in the Auferstehungskirche

“We’re going to rehearse, and everyone else is going to be quiet” Jutta Haßelwander told the children, who had come to the Auferstehungskirche on Saturday to rehearse for the annual nativity play.

At the dress rehearsel each child not only had their part, but also their own assigned place to sit.  That way, Frau Haßelwander knew exactly where the person was who she needed to go onto the stage.

She has been organising the nativity play in the Auferstehungskirche for the past 14 years, and each year she tries to interpret the Christmas story in a new year.  However this year the story is being told in a more traditional year, and preparations began back in September, with the children being cast mid-November.

The children themselves are aged between 5 and 12 and come from different parishes in the town, and some even come from catholic parishes to this protestant community especially for the play.  “They came to us because their own church did not put on a nativity play”, Jutta Haßelwander explained.

Some of the children are regular performers in the play, and eventually progress to help behind the scenes.

At the dress rehearsel, each scene was played out on the stage and repeated until Frau Haßelwander was happy with it.  She gave the children tips on how to speak loud and clear, which words and syllables to emphasise, and also which direction to look in and how long to wait before they delivered their lines.  For example Hanno, one of the wise men, had to make sure he took the telescope away from his eye before telling his colleagues the news of the star.

The children had a final chance to rehearse this week when they performed at the “Haus Emmaus” care home during the Christmas party there, because their curtail call on Christmas Even in the Church in the Ebertstraße at 3.30pm, when under the calls of “Alle mal herhören!” Joseph and Mary will make their way to Bethlehem to be counted in the census.

With Christmas now arrived after such a busy December, it will be refreshing to see a traditional Nativity Play that has not been influenced by modern trends. No doubt the church will be full!

This article appeared in German in the Oberurseler Woche on Thursday, 19th December, 2013.