Five Minutes to Bethlehem

(Lights up. The manger sits center stage. Behind it, the cardboard star glows on its pole. MARY, if used, sits by the manger, perfectly still. MADDIE stands next to the manger with her arms folded, like a very small security guard. DEB hurries in with her binder and stopwatch.)

DEB: Five minutes, people! Five minutes to Bethlehem! Joseph! Angel! Shepherd!

(JOSEPH enters, frowning at the palm of his hand.)

JOSEPH: "We have traveled far from Nashville —"

DEB: Nazareth.

JOSEPH: Nazareth. I know. I wrote it on my hand. (He squints at it.) It smudged. Now it looks like Nashville.

DEB: You have one line, Joseph.

JOSEPH: And it's a great line. I knew it this morning. (He sniffs his sleeve.) Why does Joseph smell like mothballs?

DEB: That robe has been in every pageant since 1994.

JOSEPH: Then maybe it knows my line.

(The ANGEL enters, holding her tinsel halo in place with one hand. She lets go. It drops to the floor.)

ANGEL: That's four times since the parking lot.

DEB: Can you just hold it up?

ANGEL: For the whole pageant? I have to do the arms! (She throws both arms up in a big angel pose. The halo falls off again.)

(The SHEPHERD enters in a bathrobe. With every step, his sneakers flash.)

DEB: What is on your feet?

SHEPHERD: Shoes.

DEB: They're blinking.

SHEPHERD: Only when I walk.

DEB: Then don't walk.

SHEPHERD: I'm a shepherd. It's basically all walking.

DEB: Where are your sandals?

SHEPHERD: In my mom's car. She went to get more cocoa.

(The star goes dark. Everyone looks up at it.)

DEB: No. No, no, no. Where's my star?

JOSEPH: (looking offstage) Somebody just plugged in the big coffee urn.

DEB: I told them! The star is on the kitchen outlet!

SHEPHERD: So it's the Star of Bethlehem or the coffee.

JOSEPH: I've ushered here eleven years. They're picking the coffee.

DEB: (checking her stopwatch) Three minutes. (She counts on her fingers.) Joseph has no line. The angel has no halo. The shepherd is blinking. And Bethlehem has no star.

MARY: (calmly) I'm good.

DEB: Thank you, Mary.

(DEB flips through her binder in a panic. MADDIE has watched all of this. Now she kneels behind the manger, facing the audience, and speaks to the doll, very seriously.)

MADDIE: Baby Jesus? They're getting it ALL wrong.

(Everyone freezes.)

JOSEPH: (a stage whisper) Did she just tell on us?

SHEPHERD: (a stage whisper) To Jesus.

(DEB sets the binder down and kneels next to MADDIE.)

DEB: Yeah, sweetie. We kind of are.

MADDIE: It's supposed to be perfect. It's His birthday.

(DEB looks around at them: the hand, the halo, the sneakers, the dark star.)

DEB: You know where they put Him, that first night?

MADDIE: In the manger.

DEB: Not a crib. Not a nursery. A manger.

MADDIE: (horrified) Didn't anybody clean up first?

DEB: There was no room for them at the inn. And the shepherds came running straight from the field. I bet nobody had the right shoes.

SHEPHERD: (quietly, to his sneakers) Thank you.

MADDIE: So it was messy?

DEB: Pretty messy. (She looks at the manger.) And He came right into the middle of it.

(DEB picks up her binder and opens the front cover. A sheet of paper is taped inside.)

DEB: I taped this in here in September. I haven't looked at it once. (She reads John 1:14.) "And the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us."

(A pause. Then MARY quietly holds out a hair tie to the ANGEL.)

ANGEL: You had a hair tie this whole time?

MARY: I always have a hair tie.

(The ANGEL loops the hair tie through the broken ends of the elastic and puts the halo back on. JOSEPH pats his robe and pulls out a small flashlight.)

JOSEPH: I'm an usher. I always have a flashlight. (He hands it to MADDIE.) Maddie, you're in charge of the star.

(MADDIE nods, very serious, and shines the flashlight up at the star. The foil catches the light.)

JOSEPH: I still don't have my line.

MADDIE: I know it. I know everybody's lines.

JOSEPH: Then you're standing next to me the whole time. And if I say Nashville?

MADDIE: I'll say Nazareth louder.

SHEPHERD: What about my shoes?

DEB: The shoes stay. Walk all you want.

(DEB's phone buzzes. She reads the text.)

DEB: It's Pastor. "Ready?"

(DEB looks at all of them: the patched halo, the blinking sneakers, the flashlight star, the smudged hand. She laughs.)

DEB: Not even close. (She types.) "Coming." (to the cast) Places, everybody.

MADDIE: (to JOSEPH, on her way past) Nazareth.

(JOSEPH nods and mouths it. They take their places for the nativity: MARY by the manger, JOSEPH behind her with MADDIE at his elbow, the SHEPHERD kneeling and tapping one heel so his sneaker blinks, the ANGEL standing tall with one hand on her halo, just in case. MADDIE holds the flashlight up to the star. DEB steps to the side and opens her binder, and the SHEPHERD's heel goes still. DEB looks out at the congregation.)

DEB: (reading Luke 2:1) "And it came to pass in those days, that there went out a decree from Caesar Augustus, that all the world should be taxed."

(Lights fade on the nativity. Optional: the congregation sings "O Come, All Ye Faithful," or your pageant continues from here.)

The PDF adds the staging notes and discussion questions.