"The Lost Feeling of Christmas" echoes themes from Charles Dickens' A Christmas Carol to the extent that a grumpy senior citizen is forced, through a confrontive dream, to come to terms with what the time of Christ's nativity is really all about. The messenger who speaks most forcefully to him is, of all things, his cat.
"A Lot of Christmas Love" speaks to a world where poverty and broken families are too painfully in evidence. A family has suffered the disappearance of husband and father. Those who are left to help mother and children cope find their relationships are strained, particularly as the Christmas season comes again. Like God, who comes disguised at Christmastime, this play includes a visit from a stranger in extraordinary dress.
These two Christmas plays combine traditional biblical content from the Christmas cycle of stories with contemporary life. Each is a full program, taking approximately one hour to produce, and each involves a wide spectrum of participants from the congregation, including one or more choirs or singing groups. Those who purchase this two-play set will have a pair of excellent Christmas dramas from which to choose, both created by a professor of theatre arts at Penn State University at Mount Altos, Pennsylvania.
Nancy Funk received the Bachelor of Fine Arts degree from Boston University and Master of Arts degree from the University of Iowa. Currently pursuing the PhD degree at New York University, she is Assistant Professor of Theatre Arts at Pennsylvania State University, Mount Alto Campus. She and her daughter Jhondra live in Waynesboro, Pennsylvania, where the two plays in this book were presented, having been commissioned for use in Lutheran and Methodist congregations. Having worked as director and producer for television drama and commercial work on both public and commercial network television, she is well qualified to combine insights of a secular age with the abiding truths of scripture.
