2021 - The year we could hold the Re-enactment again

In 2020, the year of COVID restrictions, we were unable to hold the Re-enactment of Our Lord's Passion. That was a very different, empty Easter as we could not be part of the traditional Easter Triduum of Holy Thursday, Good Friday and Easter Vigil Masses.

This year just before Ash Wednesday we discussed the option of running the Re-enactment, but having a very limited crowd in order that the risk of being shut down was reduced.

We decided to go ahead.

This meant a lot of work to gather everyone together, plan the Read Through, Dress Rehearsal and Good Friday, update costumes, come up with a new formula for the blood which didn't attract bees and more. 

We always hire a professional photographer to record the day as a thank you for all our cast and crew so they and others can have good quality memories of the day.

This year, to offset the loss of not being physically present on Good Friday, we also engaged professional video crew to get a high quality video of the day. Rather than just a single camera recording the event, we wanted a video you could share and re-watch. Naturally this takes time to edit and compile, combining the high quality sound, plus shots from two cameras.

The video crew knew we were all eagerly awaiting their results so released a 30 second trailer which is a very effective summary of the Re-enactment. That is at the end of this post.

It was pretty straight forward with all our past cast and crew quickly rejoined us. Then we get the traditional challenges thrown our way to make sure we really want to do the play. Excessive rain had us delay the Dress Rehearsal, illnesses and pregnancies caused last minute changes, but we all got to Good Friday.

We were rewarded with perfect weather and a great re-enactment. As with every year the different mix of cast and crew gave the play a different flavour - another aspect of our remembrance of the Passion.

This was the first year that Peter played Jesus. 4 weeks to learn so many lines and he did an excellent job.

All of our actors and crew were able to quickly come together and successfully compete the re-enactment.

Next year we will have more pilgrims to watch and participate. As it happens we were prudent keeping the numbers low considering that Bluesfest in Northern NSW with it's many thousands of planned visitors and traders and events was cancelled by the NSW Health Department after only one positive test for COVID. As we were a low key event, the risk of us being shut down was very low.

We will be posting more articles going over various aspects of the re-enactment, but for now, here is the 30 second trailer of the Re-enactment.