1 of 9
Ericka Ross plays Satan, leading his demons in a climactic scene from Lord of Light. The show focuses on the three days between Jesus' death and resurrection.
Photo by Mic Smith
2 of 9
Yvonne “Birdie” Clark conducts the musical elements of NarroWay’s shows, while partner Rebecca Martin writes the scripts and directs. Assisting in the control booth are volunteer Skylar Noblezada (far left) and theater manager Lora McCoy (far right).
Photo by Mic Smith
3 of 9
Tim Henderson of Catawba, S.C., serves dinner to the audience before filling multiple roles in Lord of Light, including Ezekiel in Act 1 and a remorseful prisoner of hell in Act 2.
Photo by Mic Smith
4 of 9
Hope Phelps of Charlotte applies Ericka Ross’ Satan makeup. Phelps and her family are frequent participants at NarroWay, performing on stage and helping behind the scenes.
Photo by Mic Smith
5 of 9
The brightly colored creation scene features a parade of plants and animals, including Adaiah Paul as the lion.
Photo by Mic Smith
6 of 9
The cast performs “By Faith” in the final scene of The Gospel According to Tennessee, NarroWay’s current production.
Photo by Ken Rice
7 of 9
John Phillips of Fort Mill takes a victory lap as Jesus after conquering death in Lord of Light.
Photo by Mic Smith
8 of 9
Rebecca Martin (left) and Birdie Clark (right) have been best friends and ministry partners for more than 35 years.
Photo by Mic Smith
9 of 9
The cast performs a scene from The Gospel According to Tennessee.
Photo by Ken Rice
Smoke billows from a dark pit at stage right, wrapped in an eerie, red glow. A menacing aura hovers over the stage, where demons crawl up from the depths of hell to do battle with God’s angels.
Bursts of pyrotechnic flames erupt in the shadowy fringes of the theater. Swords clang and clash, bodies fall, and a chorus of celestial warriors boldly sings out Jesus’ triumph over the grave. Music booms through the theater, vibrating rows of seats where an audience roots for good to defeat evil. Their cheers and applause greet a white-robed Jesus, who strides downstage and pumps a victorious fist in the air.
Not your typical Easter drama, but the action‑packed Lord of Light is an annual favorite at Fort Mill’s NarroWay Theatre. Nearly every weekend of the year, NarroWay stages original, Broadway-style musicals, themed with a Christian message and presented with all the pizzazz its cast and crew can muster.
Busloads of church groups, senior citizen groups and other tourists roll in, filling the 334-seat theater—some 25,000 visitors a year, from at least 38 other states and several other countries. And yet plenty of folks closer to home, on daily commutes or on their way to nearby mega-park Carowinds, drive right past the modest little theater without even noticing it—leaving NarroWay with the frustrating distinction, after 17 years in business, of being one of South Carolina’s best-kept secrets.
NarroWay style
Among the handful of Christian theater companies across the U.S., the nonprofit NarroWay Productions has its own unique personality.
The grandly scaled shows are all original, created by writer/director Rebecca Martin and scored by composer/conductor Yvonne “Birdie” Clark, NarroWay’s founders. They call their productions “the Broadway of Christian entertainment,” but some of what they offer is unlikely to be found in Big Apple theaters.
Audiences here get dinner with their shows, themed to suit the play: ribs when the story involves Adam and Eve; fried chicken, cornbread and cobbler for a tale set in rural Tennessee; a traditional turkey dinner at Christmas shows. The all-volunteer cast serves meals and cleans up before scurrying backstage to don costumes while Martin and Clark personally greet their audience.
Audience participation is invited. Performers leave the stage to weave among the crowd. Depending on the show, they may welcome you to share communion or dance to the “Tennessee Waltz.”
Every production features at least one live animal, well trained and cared for in a barn behind the theater. A camel, a horse, and a menagerie of goats, pigs, sheep and donkeys live together peaceably.
“We don’t have a lion,” Clark jokes, “but if we did, the lion would lie down with the lambs.”
Biblical concepts recur in their stories: Sin and hell are harsh realities, but heaven is just as real. God loves you. Scripture is pertinent in your life. But most shows revolve around common human experiences—death, grief, infidelity, guilt, discrimination, love. Historical settings include 1920s Tennessee, post-WWII America, the Civil Rights era.
“People think they’re going to get hit over the head with the Bible,” NarroWay’s director of marketing, Nathan Ramsay, says. “But you don’t have to be a Christian to see it. If you’ve never heard the Bible before, you can come and see a great show and learn about love and forgiveness.”
Professional volunteers
Picky. Sticklers. Persnickety. Perfectionists.
These words come up often when people talk about the shows Martin and Clark produce. Martin adheres to the theory that it’s not practice that makes perfect; it’s perfect practice that makes perfect.
"You better not think a miracle will happen and God will give you the words at the last minute,” Martin warns her rehearsing cast. “It’s never happened yet.”
From her perch in the control booth, Clark deftly runs the sound console and monitors 30 live mics on stage, softly singing along as she conducts each song, miming the performers’ hand gestures, her well-orchestrated soundtrack resonating through the theater.
Nearby, Martin mouths the actors’ lines and scrutinizes every movement on stage. She maintains a running online chat with the stage manager to correct anything that goes amiss during a show. A set piece is out of place; fix it before someone trips. Mic number three is fading; change the batteries first chance you get.
Stage manager Russ Cratty of Fort Mill says that attention to detail “runs downhill—we all get nitpicky, too!”
“We don’t call ourselves volunteers,” says cast member Jeff Romano of Fort Mill. “We are volunteers who are professionally trained, because Rebecca and Birdie demand quality.”
Martin readily admits a quest for excellence in every cast member, be they 8 or 80, whether they are performing on stage or delivering dinner trays.
“The cast and staff have no motivation to be here other than to serve and love and show the love of God,” Martin says. “The only pay they will get is a smile from the audience who appreciates what they have done or knowing they pleased God.”
It’s a big commitment of time and energy for people who work or go to school all week, then spend weeknights in rehearsals and weekends in shows, memorizing songs, lines and choreography—and serve the meals, mop floors and clean toilets at the theater.
“Rebecca says entertainment is changing the world, and we’re doing our best to change entertainment—that’s a powerful thing for me,” Romano says. When he gets tired and wonders why he’s doing this, he reminds himself, “Oh, yeah, we’re trying to change the world.”
Behind the scenes
In the lobby, today’s audience mills around the gift shop, waiting for the show to begin. In the kitchen, dinner plates are getting final touches.
On stage, cast and crew have gathered briefly to swap stories from yesterday’s show—funny mishaps, special moments with audience members. It’s their time to share faith and encouragement, to laugh and refocus. One actor says his family has come to see today’s show; he hopes the message will mean something to them. Martin leads a prayer for this day’s audience, this performance: Whatever happens, may it be part of God’s agenda. Then they open the doors, welcome their audience and begin serving them dinner.
Act 1 unfolds. In the dark wings, behind a black curtain, a small cluster of young children, dressed as monkeys, waits quietly for their cue to scamper up the aisles, into the audience, whooping and chattering.
Standing watch over them is Adaiah Paul, dressed as a lion. She leans down to whisper: “Now, this is our last show. Go out there and do your very best.”
Paul’s 11-year-old son, Isaiah, is also in this scene, a colorful depiction of the creation story in black light, with a choreographed parade of God’s creatures. Adaiah has just a few minutes to play out her lion role, rush backstage to change into a black leotard, and reemerge as the head of a giant, slithering snake in the Garden of Eden scene that follows.
Not due on stage until Act 2, Ericka Ross (“Satan”) hangs out backstage with John Phillips (“Jesus”), wiping down dinner trays. They are still in street clothes, although Ross’ face is painted in demonic fashion.
“Yeah, I’m just washing dishes with Jesus, talking about our time together in heaven, what went wrong up there,” she jokes.
Ross is an actor by profession in the Charlotte area but volunteers with NarroWay. Her own faith journey is stronger, she says, after performing on this S.C. stage.
“In this industry, there are not a lot of people of faith,” says Ross, who also portrays a teenage boy in NarroWay’s summer production, The Gospel According to Tennessee. That show’s theme of withstanding life’s trials and reveling in its joys resonates with her.
“Am I the best Christian? No. Do I have faith? Yes. Do I want to get back up when I fall? Yes!” she says. “NarroWay has helped me feel that fire.”
'The coolest ministry’
The theater itself, once a gambling hall on a stretch of highway nicknamed “Fort Vegas,” was transformed after Martin and Clark bought it in 2004 as a permanent home. Now it’s common for NarroWay’s shows to transform lives.
“I repent of judging others,” an anonymous audience member wrote on a comment card after seeing Lord of Light. “I repent of complaining about others. Father in Heaven, please forgive me & help me change my life.”
“It’s just the coolest ministry,” Romano says. His 17-year-old son discovered the impact of the stories they tell on stage after playing the prodigal son in a show about Jesus’ parables. A man from the audience came down after the show, wrapped his son in a hug, and said, “I’ve never seen myself more clearly than at this moment.”
“You never know who it’s going to touch,” Romano says, “but it happens every show.”
When the show ends, the cast lingers on stage to greet audience members who want to shake hands, hug or pose for photos. One young boy looks a bit unsure about meeting “Satan” and keeps his distance. Others pick out souvenirs in the gift shop or hum tunes from the show.
“You leave here with something that will last you a lifetime,” Clark says. “We let people go out with that magic.”
_____
'A great trick of God'
Depending on your point of view, NarroWay Productions’ birth and journey have been either a series of happy accidents or a divinely guided plan. Its founders and directors, Rebecca Martin and Yvonne “Birdie” Clark, maintain they have taken one small, prayerful step at a time, never with a grand vision to guide them.
“People say, ‘What great faith you had to do that,’” Martin says. “I say this was a great trick of God, because we are as stupid as the day is long.”
Clark nods in agreement. “We truly personify the saying that God uses the foolish things of the world to shame the wise.”
In the beginning, Martin and Clark were destined to dislike each other. Hailing from rival high schools, they met as freshmen at East Tennessee State University—Martin, the bubbly sorority girl, and Clark, the band musician with a rebellious streak.
“You could not get more opposite,” Martin, an animated storyteller, says. “No way she would ever want to be friends with me. But something in me said—I know now it was God—said ‘Befriend her.’”
Before the end of their first semester, Martin had led Clark to Christianity. From then on, their friendship and future together were cemented.
They finished at ETSU in 1977 with degrees in journalism and theater (Martin) and music (Clark) and a vague sense that God was steering them toward ministry. Together, they enrolled at Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville, Ky.
Doors soon opened. Martin’s sister and brother-in-law, Teresa and Joe Brown, were serving a church in Cumberland, Ky., five hours away from the seminary. They asked Martin and Clark to work with the church’s youth on weekends.
“We began then to build a ministry around musical theater,” Martin says. Their first show drew so many people, they couldn’t fit them all in the church.
As their ministry grew—Martin creating scripts, Clark writing and arranging the music—they started taking shows on the road, packing audiences in at campgrounds, amphitheaters, an old movie theater.
“People would tell us that their husband or father or whoever wouldn’t darken the door of a church,” Clark says. “But outside a church setting, it was less threatening.”
In 1996, Teresa Brown, then living in Charlotte, shared a divinely inspired impression that Martin and Clark should look at the dilapidated amphitheater at the defunct Heritage USA theme park in Fort Mill. Generous donations of labor and funds from family and supporters helped NarroWay open its first show there in 1997; that was home until the move to their current site in 2004.
Before moving to South Carolina, Martin says, they prayed: “God, we are so scared. If you are calling us, please call people alongside us to help.”
“When we look down on the stage now,” she says, “we literally see an answer to prayer."
_____
Get There
NarroWay Theatre and Conference Center is located at the intersection of U.S. 21 and S.C. 51, about ½ mile south of exit 90 off I-77 in Fort Mill.
Upcoming shows: The Gospel According to Tennessee, through Aug. 2 (closed July 4–5); The 4th Cross, Aug. 9 through Oct. 25 (closed Aug. 29–30); The Real Christmas Story, Nov. 1 through Dec. 21.
Events by appointment: NarroWay will schedule off-site shows, on-site Biblical “field trips” for children, mystery theater shows, and behind-the-scenes Experiential Tours for groups.
Details: Visit their website or call (803) 802-2300.