It wasn’t hard to find, as the theater was just a few driveways down from the road our condo was on. Each day we would pass The Miracle and see the Las Vegas style signage that advertised it’s presence. We were a bit put off by the gloss, but we weren’t TURNED OFF. The boys were so excited each time we saw it and Beau remembered me looking online at the website. He really, really wanted to go.
Wednesday evening, JB, Beau, Champ and I headed over. It was $34.95 for JB and I, but the boys were free. We then coughed up $14.95 before we even entered the theater, to pay for the boys to have a camel ride. It came with a “complimentary” photo. The camel’s name was Abba. We later saw him IN the play.
The showiness of the inside of the theater made me a bit uneasy. “What have we gotten ourselves into?” I wondered. We poked around the gift shop and had our photos taken again in front of a mural of an angel and somehow passed on the opportunity to own the 8 x 10 glossy finished printout. We were shown to our VERY, VERY good seats and looked on as some other people purchased flashing cross necklaces and light-up mugs the size of my head. I am not making either of those things up. I was figuring at this point that we had just spent our money on this lavish theater and what kind of money they were raking in. I hoped that we could make the best of it.
Then the emcee came out and as he shared, many of our reservations began to fall away. He shared about the theater’s goal of sharing the gospel and of the production’s history. As the musical started we were blown away by the cast, the music and the mechanics. The boys LOVED the angels sword fighting overhead!!
At the intermission, the same emcee [who played James and later the thief who didn’t come to accept Jesus] talked more about the mission of the theater and invited people to purchase half price tickets to donate to area nursing homes and children’s homes. We went out into the lobby where MOST OF THE CAST [minus Jesus and Satan] were working in the concessions! Seriously. Judas put the butter on our popcorn and Peter pulled our Coke off the draught.
After the second half [and about a gallon of popcorn] we were so glad we had not missed the chance to see this production. It was spectacular and Biblically sound. We were blessed.
If you click here, you can see a video. We had different actors playing Jesus and Satan, and they do change the musical a bit from year to year, portraying different miracles and parables. We’d definitely see it again, given the chance.
Dayspring Disciples 