Easter Skits for Church

Every skit is $8 except Field Notes on Easter, which is free, and one purchase covers every performance at your church. For full programs, readers’ theater and Good Friday dramas, see Easter Plays for Church; for a cast of children, Easter Skits for Kids. Get an email when new Easter skits are out:

Every Easter skit at a glance

Skit	Day	Cast	Who plays it	Minutes	Tone	Lines
Royal Arrival Protocol	Palm Sunday	5	Teens or adults and a child, 9–12	5–6	Funny, then quiet	Read from props
The Password	Palm Sunday	6	Teens or adults; a child or teen as the colt	4	Funny, then solemn	Learned
Where the Bench Stood	Palm Sunday	4–5	Adults, teens and a child, 8–11	5	Funny, then warm	Learned
Tell Them to Be Quiet	Palm Sunday	6–10	One adult and 4–8 children	5	Funny, then joyful	The adult learns his
I’ll Pass	Maundy Thursday	2	Adults	3½	Funny, then quiet	Read from props
Nothing Rises This Week	Maundy Thursday	1	One woman	5	Warm, with humor	Memorized, or cards
Incident Report	Maundy Thursday	1	One man	4–5	Funny, then quiet	Memorized, or clipboard
Thirty and One	Maundy Thursday	1	One man	5–6	Serious	Memorized
The Man Who Held the Hammer	Good Friday	1	One man	4–5	Serious	Memorized
The Wooden Lamb	Good Friday	1	One woman	5–6	Serious, tender	Memorized, or lectern
Clean Hands	Good Friday	3	Adults	5–6	Serious	Memorized
Lazarus Is Hosting	Holy Saturday	3	A man, a teen boy and a girl, 12–14	5	Funny, then tender	Learned
Talitha Cumi	Holy Saturday	1	One teen girl	6	Funny, then touching	Memorized
The Saturday Bus	Holy Saturday	3	Two women and a girl, 8–11	5	Funny, then tender	Read from props
The Canteen	Holy Saturday	3	Adults	4–5	Tender, a little humor	Read from props
Field Notes on Easter	Easter Sunday	6–10	Teens and adults and a child, 6–9	8–9	Funny, then warm	Read from clipboards
Sunrise at 6:52	Easter Sunday	5	Adults	5–6	Funny, then warm	Partly read
All in Favor	Easter Sunday	6	Adults and a child, 6–9	6	Funny, then warm	Read from agendas
One Lily Short	Easter Sunday	5	Adults	5–6	Funny, then tender	Partly read
I Know the Words	Easter Sunday	5	Adults; one plays the piano	6	Funny, then warm	Read from folders
Tyler Is Still in the Tomb	Easter Sunday	6	Adults, a teen and a child, 6–10	5–6	Funny, then tender	Partly read
Attendance Today	Easter Sunday	3	Adults	5	Warm, with humor	Read from props
While We Slept	Easter Sunday	4–7	Teens and adults	7	Funny, then serious	Memorized
Wrapped	Easter Sunday	1	One woman	5	Touching, then bright	Memorized
Four Days	Easter Sunday	1	One woman	5–6	Serious, then warm	Memorized, or lectern
No Fine Print	Easter Sunday	2	Adults	3	Funny, then warm	Partly read
Thomas Would Like a Word	After Easter	1	One man	5–6	Funny, then warm	Memorized, or lectern
Why Stand Ye Gazing Up?	After Easter	4	Teens and adults	4	Funny	Read; no rehearsal
About This One	Youth groups	5	Teens	6	Funny, then serious	Partly read
Humility, Take Two	Youth groups	5	Two teens and three adults	5–6	Funny, then serious	Mostly read
The Delete Key	Youth groups	4	Teens	5–6	Funny, then serious	Partly read

“Read from props” means the lines are hidden in something the character holds, a bulletin, a clipboard or a hymnal, so nobody memorizes. The Prep line on each script says exactly who learns what.

Where an Easter skit goes in the service

• At the very start of Easter Sunday: a funny skit that hands into the first hymn, like Field Notes on Easter. Guests relax, and the regulars laugh at themselves.
• Right before the sermon: a skit that raises the question the message answers. Give your pastor the skit’s Scripture a week ahead; every script names it at the top.
• Before Communion: I’ll Pass, three and a half minutes, on Maundy Thursday or any Communion Sunday.
• At a sunrise service: Sunrise at 6:52, written for wet chairs and a cold trumpet.
• In a quiet service: a monologue between two readings on Good Friday or Maundy Thursday, with the lights low and no applause.

How to choose an Easter skit

Start with the day, not the skit

A skit that’s perfect on Easter morning can be wrong on Good Friday. Decide first where it goes: at the start of the Easter service, before the sermon, before Communion, or in an evening program. Each script’s Best for line says where it works and where it doesn’t.

Count the people who will really come

Holy Week is the busiest week of the church year for the same volunteers who would be in your skit. Plan for the cast you will have on that week, not the one you hope for. Two to five actors cover most of these skits, and 9 of them need only one.

Funny, with one quiet moment

The Easter skits people remember make the room laugh at something it recognizes, the wet chairs at a sunrise service, a committee that votes on everything, a choir with one tenor, and somewhere in the middle go still for one line of Scripture. Nobody on stage should have to explain the point.

Easter monologues for one actor

A monologue is the easiest Easter drama to stage: one person, a stool or a table, and five or six minutes. It is also the hardest part to play, so give it to someone who will learn it, or let them read from a lectern where the script allows. We have 9:

Funny Easter skits for church

Church people laugh hardest at church life, and Easter is full of it: the sunrise service in a wet field, the lily count, the decorating committee, the choir’s last rehearsal. That laughter earns the moment of truth inside the skit. For a light opening to the Easter service, try Field Notes on Easter, Sunrise at 6:52, All in Favor and I Know the Words. For Palm Sunday there’s Royal Arrival Protocol, and for the Sundays after Easter, Thomas Would Like a Word and Why Stand Ye Gazing Up? A good funny Easter skit never makes fun of the cross or the empty tomb. It makes fun of how busy we get around them.

Short Easter skits: four minutes or less

When the service has room for one short scene: No Fine Print, I’ll Pass, Why Stand Ye Gazing Up? and The Password. Each one fits between a reading and the sermon without moving anything else.

Easter skits for small churches

Two or three actors and almost nothing to carry in: I’ll Pass, No Fine Print, Attendance Today, The Saturday Bus, The Canteen and Lazarus Is Hosting. Attendance Today is written about a small church’s Easter, around the old attendance board that says nineteen. A monologue needs only one actor, and many small churches build a whole Holy Week from them.

Easter skits with a part for a child

Many churches want one child on stage with the adults. These skits give a child a real part, with the age in parentheses: All in Favor (6–9), Tyler Is Still in the Tomb (6–10), The Saturday Bus (8–11), Where the Bench Stood (8–11) and Royal Arrival Protocol (9–12). For skits the children perform themselves, see Easter Skits for Kids.

Easter skits for people who are grieving

Every Easter congregation has someone sitting through the first Easter after a funeral. These skits speak to them without singling anyone out: The Canteen, Four Days, One Lily Short and Tyler Is Still in the Tomb. None of them jokes about grief, and their staging notes help you handle them with care, for instance by telling a grieving family about the piece ahead of time.

Rehearse a five-minute Easter skit in two weeks

1. Two weeks out: read it around a tableRead it aloud once with the cast, swap parts until the voices fit and time it with a phone. Hand out the lines highlighted.
2. Ten days out: walk it where you will performMark the entrances, where the props sit and who shares a microphone. On Easter the front of the church is full of lilies, so walk it with them in mind.
3. One week out: run it with propsTwo or three full runs. Many of our skits hide the lines in a bulletin, a clipboard or a Bible in the scene, and the staging notes say where.
4. Holy Week: one run in the room with the soundWith the microphones, the lights and the pianist, if the skit ends in a hymn. Easter morning is crowded and early, so don’t leave this for the day.

A free Easter skit for your service

Field Notes on Easter is free: two researchers from the year 2526 arrive at your Easter service to prove it was a spring candy festival, and the congregation’s “He is risen indeed” proves them wrong. About eight minutes, for the start of an Easter Sunday service, with six to ten in the cast.

Performance rights in plain words

One purchase covers your whole church. Perform the skit as often as you like, every Easter, print copies for your cast, change lines to fit your people, take an offering and include it in your livestream. Please don’t resell the script or post the file publicly. Read the full license.

Questions about Easter skits

How long should an Easter skit for church be?

Three to six minutes inside a Sunday service, up to about ten in an evening program. If you need twenty minutes or more, choose a full Easter program instead of a longer skit.

Do actors have to memorize their lines?

Often not. Many of our skits hide the lines in something the characters naturally hold, a bulletin, a clipboard, a hymnal or the agenda of a committee meeting. Each script’s Prep line tells you exactly who has to learn what before you buy.

Can a funny skit go in an Easter service?

On Easter Sunday, yes, as long as the joke is on us and not on the story. Every funny skit here has Scripture at its heart, and the joke is never on the cross or the empty tomb. On Good Friday, no: our Good Friday skits have no jokes at all.

Do we pay royalties or a fee per performance?

No. You pay $8 once, and your church can perform the skit as often as it likes, in services, programs and outreach events, every year. There is nothing to report and no one to ask first.

Is there a free Easter skit?

Yes. Field Notes on Easter is free. Read the whole script on its page, or leave your email to download the printable PDF.

Does anyone have to play Jesus?

No. In our Easter skits for church Jesus is never played: the story is told by the people around Him. In Tyler Is Still in the Tomb a teenager lies under a sheet in his youth group’s Easter play, but he is never Jesus, and every word he says is his own. Scripture in the scripts is quoted from the King James Version.

Can we change names, genders or jokes?

Yes. Most parts can be a man or a woman, and the script says so. Change names, cut lines for time or swap a joke for one your church will get. See performance rights for what your purchase covers.

How do we get the script?

You pay by card on a secure checkout page and download the PDF right away. One purchase covers your church, so you can print a copy for everyone in the cast and perform it every Easter.