CHOIR SCRIPT:  PLYMOUTH ROCKS ~ LET FREEDOM RING

 

 

Prelude: Jazz Combo plays on St. Anne theme

 

The PROCESSION: (O God our help in ages past)

(The Brass Quartet will be in the Balcony at the rear of the church)

 

Sopranos/Altos: walk to doors where you enter, at front of church (Orange Street).  At the beginning of the Introduction (played 2X), please walk with some space between you into the two center aisles.  Note:  The BROOKLYN 14TH REGIMENT, WITH FLAGS, WILL LEAD YOU IN.  You will stand in the aisles through the entire first verse.

 

Tenors/Basses: Before the Procession begins, walk to the doors outside Hillis Hall, then walk up the two side aisles to the back of the church.  Tenors will GO UP “your” stairs to your right, and basses will go up “your” stairs to your left.  You will wait at the top and also on the stairs for the Introduction.  At the beginning of the Introduction (played 2X), please enter the church on the balcony level, stretching yourselves along the length of each of the two sides behind the pews where the audience will be sitting.  STAND IN PLACE while singing the entire first verse.

 

Move into choir pews, and chairs, after the first verse.  Watch the Conductor to be seated!

 

———————————————————————————————————————

PROCESSIONAL HYMN:                  Our God, Our Help in Ages Past             William Croft

[DECKER CONDUCT; OELSCHLAGER PLAY]

 

WELCOME                                                             David Fisher, Minister of Plymouth Church

We welcome you all to this great and happy night of rejoicing through great music and singing! We welcome The Unity Choir of Mother A.M.E. Zion Church of Harlem and The Brooklyn Ecumenical Choir of Bedford-Stuyvesant which will be singing with our own Plymouth Choir and a newly formed community choir, Brooklyn Sings!  It is especially appropriate that Mother A.M.E. Zion Church and Plymouth Church are participating together since both churches were significant sites on the Underground Railroad.

         Tonight, we celebrate the 150th Anniversary of words and music together on the same page as a tool for congregational hymn singing.  More importantly, we celebrate great singing as a joyful means of creating and sustaining community.  The story of America can be told in Music.  The story of American community can be told by people singing in community.  [STAND].  The story of the church as the people of God is a story to be told in song.

 

Our Father in Heaven                                                                                   Eugene Hancock

[TERRY CONDUCT; DECKER PLAY]

                   (Jim Ferraioulo on stage, below; Sandra Bell, soprano, to right in front of choir)

[THE CHOIR SITS]

NARRATOR:    Sandy Faison

"You are the light of the world.  A city on a hill cannot be hidden."  That is the passage that Governor John Winthrop of the Massachusetts Bay Colony used from the Sermon on the Mount from the Gospel of Matthew.  In a land where so many people from many different races, religions and cultures have come together, Winthrop's challenge has yet to be fully attained.  But the goal of community remains.  [STAND]  Tonight, we have gathered here together to celebrate Freedom and Community through the great gift of music and singing.

 

All People That on Earth Do Dwell      [EATON CONDUCT,  OELSCHLAGER  PLAY]                                   

                            Think about the following ahead of time, and be ready to moved quickly!

 

[AT THE CONCLUSION OF ANTHEM, CHOIR SITS, EXCEPT: BROOKLYN SINGS! LEAVES FOR AREA OUTSIDE CHOIR LOFT; MOTHER ZION LEAVES, AND MEETS AT BOTTOM OF STAIRS (THEY WILL ENTER CHURCH TO DO SPIRITUALS, SINGING FROM STAGE.).  BROOKLYN ECUMENICAL MEN FILL IN FIRST PEW BEHIND ORGAN CONSOLE TO DO “GONNA SING” AFTER THE BRAHMS “HOW LOVELY”]  

 

NARRATOR:

The Rev. Henry Ward Beecher, the first minister of Plymouth Church, believed strongly that singing helped bring about community.  He said, "We have been a singing people.  From the very beginning of this church, it was given to it to develop the element of sacred song.   Hymns have elevated the hearts of men, time and time again."

         He said: "I see, I feel, I KNOW what power there is in singing!  That is one reason why, when I came into this church as your pastor, I determined that there should be singing in the congregation, and why I never changed that determination.  Congregational singing was inaugurated among us.  [PLYMOUTH CHOIR STANDS, MEN GATHER AT SIDES OF MIDDLE WOMEN’S SECTIONS]  Now all — men, women, and children — sing; one reason the Lord dwells among us, why there is so much spirituality in the church, why you love each other as you do, is that you sing, with grace in your hearts, to the Lord. [ACCOMPANIMENT BEGINS, MEN QUICKLY GATHER BEHIND CONSOLE AND IN FRONT OF 1ST ROW OF WOMEN]  Singing must break out where the Spirit of the Lord dwells!"

 

How Lovely Is Thy Dwelling Place                

                  

[PLYMOUTH CHOIR GOES BACK TO SEATS; BROOKLYN ECUMENICAL STANDS]                                                           

I’m Gonna Sing ‘Til the Spirit Moves in my Heart 

        

[BROOKLYN ECUMENICAL SITS.  BROOKLYN SINGS IS OUTSIDE CHOIR LOFT]]

 

NARRATOR:

Community exists only in a climate of equality.  That is, community cannot exist without equality.  Singing brings about community, and enhances it.  [BETSY GIVES A TONE TO CHOIR]

         America's own folk song, the Spiritual, brought people together through the years of slavery as a unique form of communication, leading people to freedom.  Before the Civil War, the spiritual "Steal Away" was a secret signal or code song, telling slaves that a conductor on the Underground Railroad was available to lead them to freedom.  [BROOKLYN SINGS BEGINS TO HUM SONG] After the Civil War and establishment of emancipation, “Steal Away” and other Spirituals (or Songs of Jubilee as they were known), were introduced to white Americans, revealing a new sense of community inclusive of people of all races. 

 

Steal Away        [DECKER conduct; trumpet in rear gallery; BKLYN SINGS STAYS THERE UNTIL  END OF NEXT NARRATION]  MOTHER ZION PREPARES TO GO UP ON STAGE]

 

NARRATOR: “Steal Away” and other spirituals were introduced in the 1870’s to white Americans through the Jubilee Singers of Fisk University.  Concerts here at Plymouth Church launched the Singers on a world-wide concert tour. 

         Spirituals formed the foundation upon which African-Americans experienced a unique and common identity, eventually leading to Blues, Jazz and Gospel. As stated by Bernice Johnson Reagon in We’ll Understand It Better “By and By,” her magnificent description of the Smithsonian Institution Project on African-American Gospel Music, "Spirituals record the struggle of a people to survive, but like no other histories, they also have the power to touch the souls and stir the emotions of the people who sing and hear them."  [DANCERS EXIT.  BKLYN SINGS RETURNS QUICKLY TO SEATS; MOTHER ZION ENTERS THROUGH TWO DOORS DOWNSTAIRS, TO SING SPIRITUALS ON STAGE]

 

Elijah Rock, We are Climbing Jacob’s Ladder [TERRY CONDUCT]                            

        

[KEVIN MILLER PLAYS]   TIA ROPER (FLUTE) AND K KRIEGER (SOPRANO) ENTER PIANO AREA WHILE MZ EXITS, RETURNS TO SEATS]

 

NARRATOR:

Early in his ministry at Plymouth Church, Henry Ward Beecher discovered that a powerful means for communicating the horrors of slavery to northerners, to people who had never witnessed this practice, was to conduct mock slave auctions where the people purchased the freedom of a slave.  On several occasions, he conducted mock slave auctions.  The best remembered of these occurred in February 1860, when the young girl called "Pinky" was given her freedom, and Rev. Beecher gave her a ring that he called her “freedom ring.”  On the morning after, Rev. Beecher took her to Manhattan where Eastman Johnson painted her admiring her freedom ring.  Sixty-seven years later, that person, then known as Rose Ward Hunt, returned to Plymouth Church to thank the church for her freedom as well as for supporting her education at Howard University.  On that occasion in 1927 [FLUTE BEGINS TO PLAY] Mrs. Hunt presented, and returned, her freedom ring to the church, as an expression of her gratitude.

 

Blessed Assurance             

[UPON CONCLUSION, FLUTIST AND SINGER EXIT; CHOIR STANDS TO SING]:

 

Guide My Feet      

[CHOIR REMAINS STANDING UNTIL CONCLUSION OF BATTLE HYMN]          

 

 

NARRATOR:

Abraham Lincoln was invited by the young men of Plymouth Church to make an address at the church in February 1860.  At the last moment, the site of the address was moved to Cooper Union in Manhattan.  On the day before his speech, Lincoln attended morning worship, sitting in pew 87.  The next day, he spoke at Cooper Union, ending his address with the words:

         [MUSIC STARTS] "Let us have faith that right makes might, and in that faith, let us dare to do our duty as we understand it."

 

O For a Faith [EATON CONDUCT ; OELSCHLAGER PLAY]

 

NARRATOR:

Five years after Abraham Lincoln was invited to speak at Plymouth Church, and as the Civil War was ending, Lincoln echoed his Cooper Union words that “right makes might” in the final sentence of his Second Inaugural Address — one that Frederick Douglass said "sounded more like a sermon than a state paper."   Lincoln said:

[RHYTHMIC DRUMS HEARD, FROM BALCONY; THE DRUMS HEARD THROUGHOUT THE PIECE] "With malice toward none; with charity for all; with firmness in the right, as God gives us to see the right, let us strive on to finish the work we are in; to bind up the nation's wounds; to care for him who shall have borne the battle, and for his widow, and his orphan — to do all which may achieve and cherish a just, and a lasting peace, among ourselves, and with all nations."  [A SOFT TRUMPET FROM BALCONY IS HEARD IN BRIEF FLOURISH]

         (and chords foretelling the introduction of the “Battle Hymn” as an echo in the distance, growing into the actual introduction.)

 

Battle Hymn of the Republic             

[EATON CONDUCT; OELSCHLAGER PLAY]

 

[MEN ENTER AT MEASURE 5.  WOMEN ENTER ON “TRUTH IS MARCHING ON.] drum heard in the distance; dancers l gradually emerge.  Simultaneously, the Brooklyn 14th “soldiers” will emerge from the places where they are posted around the church, and step slowly toward the front.  They will meet the dancers toward the end of the anthem in a stark tableau, as the dancers throw their red shawls over their necks in a flourish of color.  the People join to sing the final verse, and the anthem concludes.

 

                                                                  Intermission [SHORT!]

 

JAZZ COMBO begins to play, 5 minutes into the Intermission, plays until the lights dim…..[CHOIR IN REGULAR SEATS]

 

Saints Bound for Heaven      

[EATON CONDUCT; DECKER/TERRY 4-HANDS PIANO]

 

[AFTER “SAINTS,” BKLYN SINGS MOVES DOWNSTAIRS TO LINE UP FOR “CHARIOT;”  MOTHER ZION-FRONT-ROW-WOMEN LEAVE, GO TO CHAPEL; BKLYN ECUMENICAL MEN MOVE INTO FIRST ROW, VACATED BY M ZION /BKLYN SINGS WOMEN.]                 [JOHN S. MAKES SURE MUSIC STAND IS IN FRONT OF FIRST PEW]

 

NARRATOR:

In December 1866, Frederick Douglass spoke in this place.  He spoke about Reconstruction, calling for reconstructing “not merely the Southern States, but the very frame-work of the United States.”  He said that Americans should make “a government in fact, as it is in profession, a government of the people, for the people and by the people and the whole people.”  He urged Americans to “blot out all discrimination against any class and every class who may be discriminated against; take from every class the slightest apology for attributing its misfortunes to the government proper; exclude no man from the ballot box because of his color; exclude no woman from the ballot box because of her sex; make it a government each for all and all for each, and there is no reason in the world why this republic of ours may not stand and flourish while the world stands.”

            Speaking a year after the 13th Amendment to the Constitution ending slavery was ratified, but before the 14th Amendment providing that citizenship not be abridged was ratified, Douglass warned Americans that the task of equality was not completed.  He said, “An instant may be sufficient to snap the bondsman’s chains, but a century is not sufficient to obliterate all traces of a former bondage.”

[BKLYN SINGS ENTERS ONTO STAGE] In the years that followed, the freed people, as they sought equality within the American community, dreamed of change. [CLIFF PLAYS] New situations required courage, vision and ingenuity, and an invigorated and boundless human spirit found a new musical expression, a new and powerful sound of hope.

 

Ride Up in the Chariot

[DECKER CONDUCT; TERRY PLAY] 

[AFTER PIECE SUNG, BKLYN SINGS MOVES OUT OF CHURCH, BACK UPSTAIRS , BUT OUTSIDE OF CHOIR LOFT.   CLIFF CHANGES PLACES WITH RICHARD CUMMINGS, WHO CONTINUES TO PLAY WHILE JAZZ ENSEMBLE COMES ONTO STAGE]                     

 

Jazz Anthem (5 pieces)                                                   Celestial Swing

 

[JAZZ PLAYERS DEPART.]

 

NARRATOR:

Just under a century after Frederick Douglass first spoke here, in February 1963, the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., addressed the congregation at Plymouth Church.  He spoke about "The American Dream."  He said that he used "this subject because America is essentially a dream — a dream yet unfulfilled.  The substance of the dream is expressed in the sublime words of the Declaration of Independence— that "all men are created equal.”

         Dr. King said, There are several things that need to be done to make this dream a reality. "[W]e have made of this world a neighborhood.  We have failed to make of it a brotherhood . . . and now we must all learn to live together as brothers or we will perish together as fools.  .No individual can live alone; no nation can live alone.... all life is inter-related and we are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny.

         He concluded that, "[A]s we struggle in this continuing Struggle for Freedom and Justice, as we struggle to make the American dream a reality, we do not struggle alone; somehow the God of the Universe struggles with us . . . .

         "With this faith we will be able to transform fatigue and despair into buoyancy of hope in bringing new light into the dark chambers of pessimism.  And with this faith we will be able to struggle and make the American Dream a reality.  With this faith we will be able to speed up the day when all God's children [BKLYN ECUMENICAL STAND] black men and white men, Jews and Gentiles, Protestants and Catholics, will be able to join hands and sing in the words of the old Negro Spiritual, 'Free at Last, Free at Last, thank God Almighty we are Free at Last!'" 

 

The Last Words of David                

[EATON CONDUCT; OELSCHLAGER, PLAY]

[AFTER PIECE IS SUNG: ALL CHOIRS MOVE BACK INTO PLACE, WHILE D. FISHER INTRODUCES NEW HYMN;  DESCANT SOPRANOS GATHER BEHIND ORGAN CONSOLE]

 

RECOGNITION OF THE NEWLY COMMISSIONED HYMN (COMPOSER RECOGNIZED FROM AUDIENCE)

 

The Rev. Dr. David Fisher:  Through the healing power of music, we recognize the rescue effort, service and sacrifice of the men and women of the New York City Police and Fire Departments, and the Emergency Medical Services, during the aftermath of the collapse of the World Trade Center — an event which forever changed the lives of those living in our community, as it created close bonds between people, which will also last forever.  In the same spirit, we acknowledge the brave efforts of those working to embrace, comfort and support the victims of Hurricane Katrina’s fury.  The first singing of this hymn is to honor those who have done, and who continue to do, so much to serve our community.

 

God Offers Christ to Mend the Earth [DECKER CONDUCT/OELSCHLAGER PLAY] [CHOIR REMAINS STANDING AFTER HYMN!]                                           

 

Come Thou Fount of Every Blessing  

[TERRY CONDUCT; DECKER PLAY]                 

 

[AFTER PIECE, AND DURING APPLAUSE, HALF OF EACH “OUTSIDE” VOICE PART LEAVES AND GOES DOWNSTAIRS QUICKLY, WHILE D. FISHER SPEAKS BRIEFLY]

 

                                                                 BENEDICTION                                                                                                                                            David Fisher

 

Walk Together, Children  [TERRY CONDUCT]

 

CHOIRS WALK UP AND DOWN AND AROUND AISLES UPSTAIRS AND DOWN, AS REHEARSED.  BE IN CONTACT WITH THE PEOPLE.  GO UP AND DOWN THE LITTLE AISLES UPSTAIRS (THE FIRST ONE DOWN A LITTLE AISLE IS THE LAST ONE UP)

[AT CONCLUSION OF ANTHEM, CHOIRS EXIT—GO TO RECEPTIONS, AND PLEASE STAY LONG ENOUGH TO GREET A FEW PEOPLE]

 

FESTIVAL VOLUNTARY (Handel’s Royal Fireworks), organ and brass

 

 

THANK YOU FROM EVERYONE AT PLYMOUTH CHURCH FOR SINGING WITH US!