All is Calm, All is Bright – The Story of ‘Silent Night’ by Andrew Beattie
£19.00 incl. zero VAT
The Christmas Quartet – Play 2
The approximate running time of this play is 20 minutes.
This play is for a small cast and requires no scenery, so it could be easily performed in a church as well as a school.
Silent Night (German: Stille Nacht, heilige Nacht) was first performed on Christmas Eve 1818 at St Nicholas Parish Church in the small Austrian town of Oberndorf bei Salzburg. All is Calm All is Bright tells the story behind the carol’s composition.
Description
A young priest, Father Joseph Mohr, had come to Oberndorf the year before. He had already written the lyrics of Stille Nacht and after river flooding damaged the organ of the church in Oberndorf, the school children bring the words to Franz Gruber, schoolmaster and organist in the nearby village of Arnsdorf. Gruber composes a melody and guitar accompaniment so that the song could be sung at Mass on Christmas Eve.
This is a short play for a small cast (8 speaking parts) and could be bolted together with another play from The Christmas Quartet to give more children the opportunity to participate and to give a longer performance time.
See a sample of All is Calm All is Bright – The Story of Silent Night