Hannah - a drama for Mothering Sunday


We have a long thin church which makes drama difficult so a lot of the action for this took place in the nave. We created a temple by the west door, using boxes and throwing cloths over them to create the effect of pillars and richness. The centre piece was the menorah, the seven branched candlestick.

You can download a PDF of the script: here

We wanted a drama that would include the children, but did not need rehearsing (!) We chose the story of Hannah and the children acted the People of God travelling to Shiloh.

As this was an All Age service we decided to split the drama into three scenes interspersed with hymns, confession and prayers.

Scene 1 began with "Every year the People of God went to Shiloh to worship God in the temple. Elkanah went with his wives Peninnah and Hannah..." Elkanah, Penninah and Hannah all a group at the front of the church. Peninnah went in front with the children, while Hannah walked drearily at the back. They made their way to the back of the church, where the scene in the temple was enacted. The scene ended with the words "and the People of God made their way home."


The second scene began with the words "Every year the People of God went to Shiloh to worship God in the Temple. But the next year Hannah did not go." Hannah walked up and down the aisle showing her new baby off to everyone. (As it happened we did have a very young baby and this was almost her first outing!)

Hannah then explained her reason to Elkanah – that this baby would be dedicated to God.


The third scene began once more with: "Every year the People of God went to Shiloh to worship God in the Temple..." This time Hannah took the young Samuel (the baby's older brother) to Eli in the temple. We were a bit worried that he would be upset at having to stay there, while his mum walked away but he was fine. The scene finished with his mum bringing him a little coat – we asked him to run down the aisle to meet her.

During the prayer time we gave everyone a slip of paper to write a prayer which was then linked together to make a paper chain. The hymns included "Give thanks with a grateful heart", "God forgave my sin in Jesus name" and "Teach me to dance". We also gave out posies to all the women in the congregation.

Sarah