Teens share Christian message through original play

Text messaging and instant messaging are daily habits for many teens, but a group of local teenagers shared a different type of message with audiences through an original play.

Their play, “A Message in Time,” told the story of a group of teens who travel through time to learn lessons about the role God plays in everyone’s life.

“Even if you’ve come to a point where everything is going wrong, you can always turn back to God. He is always calling for you,” said Hockessin resident Katie Kramedas, 15, who played Christina in the show.

She and 32 others participating in the King’s Drama Company summer camp performed “A Message in Time” at the Wilmington Christian School on August 1 and 2.

Kramedas helped devise the plot of the play, which is based on the book “The Traveler’s Gift,” by Andy Andrews. She said it was rewarding to create something that could help people.

The play’s encouraging theme is what made “A Message in Time” original, said Kramedas, and she hoped the performance was an uplifting experience for audience members struggling down a difficult path.

Kramedas and her fellow actors spent a month producing the show, first creating the story, then working on sets, lighting, acting and choreography with the help of King’s Drama Company director Gerard Hausheer.

King’s Drama has performed student-produced plays every summer since 1999 and gives actors a Christian faith-based outlet for their talents, said music director Mary Hausheer. The students play games, do improvisations and practice acting, singing and dancing while learning about theatre, the Bible and every aspect of producing a play, she said.

Being involved in every part of the show was challenging but rewarding, said Hockessin resident Daniel Mason, 13, who played Dylan. Practicing the choreography and the harmonies in the songs was the most fun, he said, and collaborating with a group of his peers kept rehearsals interesting.

“I feel like I am a really big part of the show,” he said. “We all have really important parts.”

The key to producing a successful play is teamwork and there were no egos among the actors during rehearsals, said Wilmington resident Becky Ronan, 15.

Everyone felt like they had a stake in the performance because they all gave input, she said, and seeing their ideas come to life on stage was a lot of fun.

“When you do an original show like this, everything is unexpected,” she said. “It is really fun to not know what is going to happen next.”

Working on the show was a great opportunity to learn about drama, said Pike Creek resident Christopher Beam, 14, who plans continue acting in high school and college.

Becoming a different person and understanding that person’s emotions and motivation makes acting unique, he said. Performing in "A Message in Time" was especially unique, he said. While teenagers tend to get a bad reputation, the fact that 33 of them could collaborate to produce such a positive performance shows that reputation is not always deserved, said Beam.

“There are teenagers who are always breaking the stereotype,” he said.