Actor brings ‘Prophets’ to Valley audiences

MAT-SU — Professional actor Brad Sherrill is in Alaska performing his new one-man show, called “Prophets.”

He previously toured Alaska churches in 2004 with a similar one-man performance of “The Gospel of John.” Sherrill said it took him about four and a half months to commit all 20,000 words in that text to memory.

“I may be 85, living in a nursing home and not know my name, but I will know the Gospel of John because I have been saying it for so long,” Sherrill joked Wednesday night following the first of seven Alaska performances.

Sponsored by the Valley Christian Conference, his Mat-Su Valley performance is at 7 p.m., Saturday at St. John Lutheran Church in Palmer. Tickets are $15 for adults and $10 for seniors, youth and military.

Where his previous solo production was performed on a sparse stage and relied on a few key props, Sherrill said “Prophets” combines words from the Old Testament prophets — Isaiah, Jeremiah and Amos — with multi-media images that correspond to these ancient words.

“Idols haven’t changed in thousands of years — power, money, greed, thinking you can do it on your own,” he said.

To drive that point home, one image in the multi-media presentation shows an image of a golden calf that dissolves into the merrill Lynch bull, Sherrill said.

Unlike his first dramatic one-man performance, which included every word in the Gospel of John, this script is made up of key texts in Isaiah, Jeremiah and Amos.

Sherrill said he was inspired to read the Old Testament prophets by a pastor.

“She mentioned to me: ‘You should look at the prophetic writings,’” he said. “After doing the Gospel of John, it made sense to me personally to know some of the texts he knew and he quoted from. For Christians, it’s vital to know what led up to Jesus and it all falls on the heels of the prophets.”

Sherrill takes the stage in modern dress and talks for most of the 90-minute performance. The stage is set up to create the impression of a courtroom where the audience is the jury. A globe of the Earth is central to the set because it illustrates how small we are in relation to all of God’s creations, he said.

“It seemed important to bring it to life for today because a lot of Christians rarely hear these texts,” Sherrill said. “That’s what I hear a lot. “You brought it to life for me.’”

Contact Heather A. Resz at heather.resz@frontiersman.com or 352-2268.