Judgement House 2016

             Judgement House 2016:
                      "Broken"
This year at Burkemont Baptist Church I attended, participated and saw behind the scenes of their annual Judgement House. This years theme was "Broken". It addressed three different story lines, two of which went to Heaven.
First we had a girl whose father had died of Cancer. She had a hard time even wanting to believe in God because why would God let her father die?
Second we had a biker who firmly believed that he was not worthy of Heaven. He had done too many bad things in his life.
Finally we had a devoted church goer, except she wasn't exactly devoted to God. She was there for the gossip and fellowship without truly being there for God.

So each group followed through the scenes as we watched the daughter and the biker turn their lives around and the gossip only got worse. They all three died and we followed them to judgement. The daughter and biker went to heaven and the gossip went to hell.

I critiqued the acting, design and flow; not the script.

The acting was decent-ish. When you consider the fact that these were all volunteers it was actually pretty good. There were a few scenes where I noticed minor mistakes such as turning your back to the audience or not projecting loud enough but, stuff happens.
One of the scenes where I wasn't very impressed was Hell. The new Satan (At least I am guessing that's who it was) didn't project very well and sounded a little.. off. I can't place just what was wrong but it wasn't a very convincing scene.

The design for every scene was pretty good. The bedroom scene could have used a little more detail. It looked like a bedroom but not one that someone lived in. Heaven could have used a few more details but there isn't exactly a blue print for what Heaven should look like so understand not wanting to step on toes there.

The flow of things was alright. They made a few changes this year that I was impressed with when it came to the actual walking course, as far as the production flow went there were a few scenes *Cough* Hell *Cough* that didn't feel like the same characterization as the rest. I was impressed with the multiple closing rooms and the "Fewest halls" routes. They made it less stressful and time consuming for the visitors.

So over all I think the year was another success. They recognized where they could improve on certain things and they did. One of the things I respect the most in a venue is their adaptability and they certainly showed how adaptable they were this year. I will be going back next year and do a more in depth analysis on the entire process.

~Aki Ame Okami