Church of the Shepherd’s Youth Dinner Theatre presented “The Adventures of Illinois Jones” on Feb. 8 and 9. The fourth annual play, written and directed by Church member Scott White, was a parody of Indiana Jones that intertwined the classic tale with biblical messages.

“Sometimes I’ll be sleeping and in the middle of the night I get an idea,” White said. “It’s the best one yet. I write it but a bunch of the kids and the adults just add to it in their own way, which is really fun.”

This annual event was put together by around 50 youth group members who performed the play while a total of 285 audience members enjoyed dinner (Feb. 8) and dessert (Feb. 9). Casting began shortly after Thanksgiving with practices beginning after Christmas. The cast practiced every Sunday during the normal youth group meetings, which ran for two hours, and during evening practices the Monday-Thursday prior to the event.

“Practices went really smoothly,” junior and singer Sam Baalmann said. “It was nice to spend time with the youth group outside of the mission trips.”

Tickets were sold for the Friday night dinner showing for $15 per adult, $10 per child ages six-10, while VIP seats were sold for $5 extra. Saturday’s dessert theatre tickets were sold for $8. Children under five were admitted for free both evenings. The money raised during the event goes towards mission trips for both the high school and middle school mission trips.

“The show went very well,” freshman and cast member Tyler Firth said. “Everyone was speaking their lines correctly, the audience got the jokes that were in the script, and all in all it was a great performance. It was just absolutely perfect.”

More information can be found on Church of the Shepard’s website at: http://www.coswired.org/