We had our second rehearsal for the Passover Experience production yesterday. This is going to be so much fun!The show takes place at a place called Capernaum, a replica of a 1st century village near Jerusalem.

Capernum is a permanent village near Weatherford, Texas that becomes a live interactive theater twice a year, at Christmas and Easter. The rest of the year, the site is used for church events and activities. The weekend before Easter (April 11, 12, 13) and on Good Friday and the Saturday before Easter (April 18 and 19), I’m part of the show called The Passover Experience. The whole village will come alive with actors dressed in period costumes. We’ll be retelling the story of the exodus — when Moses led the Israelites out of slavery in Egypt, and the Last Supper before Jesus was crucified.

The play isn’t like most plays, where the audience sits out front and the actors are on stage. It’s an interactive drama, where the audience is made up of “time travelers” who walk through the story with guides and interact with the actors so they can experience how it might have been all those years ago.  There are “performances” in five areas of the site — the Path of Plagues, The Last Supper, the Marketplace, the Leaven House, and the Passover House, and visitors can also enjoy the sculpture and prayer garden. You can walk through the sites at your own pace, and there’s no set order — so you can start with the Last Supper and end with the Marketplace, or start with the Path of Plagues and end somewhere else.

Tour guides will take groups of 15-20 “time travelers” at a time through each part, and you’ll be surrounded by actors of all ages.  I think the youngest “actor” is four months old, and the oldest is a great grandfather.

I am one of three boys playing Abraham. Why did they hire three actors to play the same role? Because it’s a pretty big part, and it takes place in a large segment of the 5-acre Capernaum site. So, while one Abraham is walking with a group of visitors, another one is starting his journey with another one. I think my part is really cool — I play an Israelite boy who is living through the plagues that the Bible describes in Exodus. I get to do a lot of screaming and running, and interact with a whole bunch of different actors as well as the visitors to the site.

My costume is basically a dress — I’ve never worn a dress before. A tutu, yes. But not a dress! (At Circus Smirkus, they have “Tutu Thursdays” where everyone — adults and kids alike — wear tutus. It’s loads of fun!) I hope it’s warm during the production — so far, it’s rained two of the three weekends we had rehearsals, and I think I’d have frozen in a short dress.

Tickets for the Passover Experience are now on sale. It runs from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. each day (April 11, 12, 13, and April 18 and 19) and we stay open until everyone who has arrived by 5 p.m. has gone through the Path of Plagues, The Last Supper, the Marketplace and the Majestic Statue Garden.

You can get tickets at www.TammyLaneProductions.com or by phone at 1800-489-1950. Driving directions are also on the website — it took us about an hour to get there from north Dallas on Saturday, but the map on my tablet says that it can take up to 2 hours to drive there. I think it’s going to be worth the drive if you’re interested in a really unusual way to celebrate Easter this year, though!