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Kimberly Creasman
Dawn Fung catches up with Kimberly Creasman — artist and mentor to many local Christian artists in Singapore — after six years! Kimberly Creasman was the first artist to be interviewed at CreateLeVoyage.com Quotes are from our 2003 article.
Writer: Dawn Fung
Dawn: I don’t know if we’re still running A4J. I go in occasionally to deny or allow members to join. But it’s quite a large, and inactive group. Would there ever be a central community for Christian believers in the arts to belong or gather, or is this too idealistic and maybe unbiblical?
Kim: I don’t have the slightest qualms about holding onto something that feels dead and lifeless. I still like the idea of and am glad we have some kind of a virtual pool of connections with other artists in Singapore who are artists and for Jesus. It’s a reservoir of those who are passionate about having been saved from ourselves but are now walking with a Saviour who has also endowed us with his creative power.
Yes, the group has been rather dormant over the last few years, but I am not regretful nor unconcerned about its “untapped potential.” I pray for the people whose names are on the list, or used to be. Many of them may not be walking closely with their Saviour right now. Some may not be having regular creative outlets to feed their God-given artists’ soul.
I have a solid confidence that in God’s perfect timing he will be the one to harness the power behind this collection of emails which represent people whose hearts have tasted truth and can share that in ever more artistic ways. I look forward to what the future holds when that time comes. And I certainly hope his timing is sooner than later!
Dawn: We discussed the stigma of church drama in 2003 and to quote : “[Singapore's] day jobbers were trained in their livelihood but not in acting. The lack of a pool of trained, practising actors led to the lacklustre local church dramas. As a result, Kimberly gingerly terms her work as ‘community drama’ rather than ‘church drama’.” Have this diagnosis altered in the light of any significant changes?
Kim: I’ve mellowed over the years ; in my younger days, I lamented that church was boring and embarrassingly old fashioned, while church drama required an overhaul from its “mediocrity”. I’ve started to recognize that no matter the quality of our art in the name of the Creator of the Universe, there is more purpose to it than pursuing excellence in a well crafted and produced “show.” These days I’ve begun to identify the goal is much more than aiming for excellence. Creating art in our Christian experience — as part of private or corporate worship and witness — doesn’t have to be world-class standard to be used by God to draw people to the truth of a relationship with Himself.
Drama in the church, and indeed all art, can be: Grand. Powerful. Impactful. Soul Stirring. Because of my lifelong love of theatre, and a belief in its almost spiritual power to evangelistically move hearts and minds, I still have a longing to see Christ’s church put on theatre productions that will take the breath away of every audience member. I long to see plays that will have audiences involuntarily rising to their feet in ovational agreement, or falling to their knees in humility. If indeed we are the children of the Lord of Lord, Creator of the Universe, and if we are made in his image, surely we have the capacity to do that. Moving back and forth between Singapore and Los Angeles, I’ve seen some fantastic productions mounted by Christians in this generation.
I believe we have the potential to make breathtaking theatre art that points people to what is True, especially in a time when the peoples of the earth are allowing other forms of art to unwittingly lead them down a path of lies.
However, this will not happen merely by trusting in God to inspire us and relying on him to come thru for our little band of amateurs in our church. Without numerous believers dedicating themselves to study, exposure, training, and lots of practice, we’re not going to come close to realizing our hopes and potential. There needs to be serious craftspeople who are disciplined and work at becoming masters, in order for us to come close to measuring up to professional industry standards.
And we must be realistic about the fact that [Singapore is] a very small country. The reason we don’t produce great Christian dramas is the same reason we don’t produce more Olympic champions. We just don’t have the pool from which to draw and develop heaps of world class talent which can produce world class works of art. This may seem harsh, but it’s true: with a population smaller than more than 100 cities in China, we are doing well to have been noticed on the world stage as much as we have!
I am so impressed with the diligence of Singapore to improve and compete when we are only a city. We forget that we are playing on the same stage and level as European countries or the USA, when our population isn’t any bigger than metropolitan Atlanta, Georgia (or many of the major cities of a country with fifty states).
Dawn: You mentioned how “some churches could be too eager planting productions for their tight schedules, whereby leaving little time to train and nurture the actors and dramatists. [Kimberly] notes, “Some [of the dramatists] have not watched theatre for a long time. I asked them what was the last good play they saw and they cited one from long ago”.
Kim: This is just as true today as it was when we originally discussed it. Most Christians I meet who are producing drama in their churches will not be purchasing tickets for the Arts Festival. I’ll bet only a small handful parted with the $88 it took to buy a ticket to the recent Bridge Project production of The Tempest. We are not a theatre going society, and church practitioners (even many professional practitioners) are not investing in exposing themselves to an artistic higher standard or their growth as artists. Most of us are satisfied to play at art rather than be artists.
I’ve come to a place in my life that I believe this is fine. In this season of my life, I am not diligently pursuing my development as an artist. These days I’m studying and growing and pouring my life into my role as a parent of teenagers, my husband and his growing ministry, and the spiritual growth of some new believers and a new church. It’s not to say I don’t miss theatre, or I won’t come back to it but I’m not calling myself a theatre artist these days.
I currently am attending a church full of artistic people, but at present, our Sunday morning worship, or home groups, or prayer meetings don’t intentionally put any “out of the box” kinds of arts into the mix. The musical part of our weekly worship is crafted well, and the pastor is a gifted storyteller whose reading of Scripture or an illustration is as good as any first rate drama team has ever done. In this church-plant our worship services are rather casual, pared-down and simple.
Having been a part of an LA church where we programed every detail of lighting and sound on a cue sheet for worship and even had a kind of “post production meeting” each Tuesday, it’s strange that I’m at a place in my journey where I am okay with the simplicity of our worship. More than okay, I love attending worship at our church. I look around at our church leadership, and as a new church, I realize that we can’t be and do everything. There are other core ministries of a church-plant with a lot of new believers which need to be established. Sure, some of our other interests or gifts are not being expressed, yet I have a calm sense that it will happen in God’s timing. For now, I’ve a strong sense of call to be part of a welcome team, or lead a healthy home cell group.
In December 2008 I was a guest at an embarrassing excuse of a drama in a local Church’s Christmas luncheon. I was already battling depression, and this little play nearly caused despair, “I’ve been here 9 years Lord, and from the looks of it, I’ve not made any difference. It’s as bad as it ever was. I am wasting my life.” I’m embarrassed to admit it. How pompous of me! But, even in my arrogance, the gentle Saviour encouraged me that his little play was dear to the people in this church who were watching it. It was fun for them. I sensed him say, “Nevertheless, let’s do something about the need for more training in the new year.”
So, early in 2009, a collection of Christians in theatre arts came together to help me host 2 CRMS/CITA (Christians in Theatre Arts) drama workshops. These two training events gave us all an exciting season to empower others and strengthen this mixed bag of thespians’ faith in Jesus. In 2010 we’ve not done any workshops, but that team is spread around putting on new productions and finding new avenues and platforms for drama ministry (at Grace Assembly and Church of Our Saviour).
On one hand, I can be discouraged that we’ve not made much improvements for all the training, and courses and productions. This semester, the theatre course I teach at TCA College was cancelled due to lack of interest. The last time I taught there, I had only 4 students in my class.
I didn’t bring myself to go see any of our mega-church productions this past Christmas. I’m a little tired of it all right now, and know it’s not up to me. But here’s always a new crop of fresh creative young people who have the passion to use their art to change the world for Christ though they may never heard of CAN!, CITA, TAGS (The Articulate Gallery Series) or LuWei Performing Arts, or that there once was a magnificent production of Judah Ben Hur at the University Cultural Centre.
Speaking of fresh young passionate theatre artists, I recently met up with Pamela Lee, who upon the closing of LuWei’s office, and a short stint with TheVoice, has started her own training company SOOGI (Simply One of God’s Instruments). She is a whirlwind of energy and developing many projects and contacts for training dramatists in churches. I’m always on the lookout for people like her ready to roll, and just needing a little encouragement!
In the next issue, we continue with Artist and Mentor: Kimberly Creasman (Part 2), where Kimberly shares more about her role as a mentor. Feel free to email Kimberly at kimberly@crms.org.sg.
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