Welcome!

Welcome to Writing 4 JC!  I'm Lee, and for the past 16 years, my wife, daughter and I have been very involved in writing and producing plays and musicals that glorify God by leading people to Jesus Christ.  Our goal is to create shows that entertain, but more importantly, lead people to salvation.  We write and produce two plays/musicals each year.  The shows are performed live at Calvary Chapel Costa Mesa by the Calvary Chapel Drama Ministry to audiences of more than 7,000 people each December and May.  The shows are also streamed live over the internet and have consistently drawn remote audiences of over 50,000 viewers.

We're currently writing show #33... "Wish Upon A Star".  It's a musical comedy set in Hollywood's golden age about a group of aspiring actors who are driven by the hope of fame and their inner need for fan adulation.

We approach the writing process a little differently than most other playwrights.  You might say we write backwards.  We start with a 3-page skeleton overview of the show, beginning, middle and end, along with a basic character list.  At that point, we create several Auditions Scripts that are brief exchanges between the main characters we're looking for.  We try to squeeze in as many emotions as we can into these small, half-page scripts.  Then, we hold auditions.  Once all of the roles have been cast, then and only then do we begin writing the actual script.

This approach was, at first, by necessity since we only have about three months to write, rehearse and perform each play.  We wouldn't have time to write the entire script and then begin rehearsals.  Although it began by necessity, we wouldn't do it any other way because we're able to write to the strengths of our actors.  We always try to find the top strengths in each actor and then leverage those strengths into the character they're playing.  This not only leads to a very strong, believable performance, it also ensures we have a large variety of unique characters to tell each story.

We love what we do.  We call it Drama For Jesus, or "Drama 4 JC" for short.  God has blessed us with an amazing ministry/hobby/escape.  And He has used the gift of writing to bond our little family together.