Some tips for writing appetizer skits (from my personal experience):
1. You don't need to make the scripts explain the whole big point. That will be handled by the teaching I/C later on. The appetizer is meant to captivate the kids. That means we have to get them hooked onto the Big Point for that day, so that they will want to pay attention to the rest of the sermon to find out more what the Big Point is actually about.
2. Children tend to see things literally and think concretely, meaning that you have to communicate using real-world examples to illustrate abstract concepts (e.g. sin, guilt, redemption, forgiveness and so on.). It's challenging, yes. That's why God sent you here. :D Thank God for you!
(This reminds me of one Big Point last time: "Jesus is the Alpha and the Omega." Hong Teck had to write the skit for that. He ended up with a very long script that the actors tried to memorise and... couldn't remember. So Eilton, who was one of the actors, shot off this: "Jesus is the Alpha and the Omega... BECAUSE OMEGA-3 IS GOOD FOR YOU!")
3. Do your best to keep the script and plot simple. By 'simple', it mean that the plot does not have sub-plots, nor subtleties.
A very classic example is a Charlie Chaplin fight. For that, the fighters use props that make WWE look like a Teletubbies huddle-o-rama. Pots, pans, ladders, sticks, bombs... we're talking BIG and DIRECT. Sledgehammers, etc. Of course, I'm not saying we go pro-violence lah. But what I mean is that going big, right-in-your-face, and to the point makes for very enjoyable and easy-to-follow plots. Kids often enjoy watching a silly inflatable big hammer whack onto a hapless head... hyperbolic humour in action!
Black-and-white characterisations are recommended too, though older children can reasonably discern and empathise with characters with mixed feelings/motivations/hearts etc. Such an example would be Severus Snapes of the Harry Potter series.
The fewer words, the better! Mime acts tend to be a fun draw for the kids (provided you have a good sound-effects team to back you up).
For some great examples, you can watch classic non-speaking skits such as "The Pink Panther" and "Mr Bean".
4. Use dramatic 'rhythm'. By this, I mean things like, have patterns of 3, have the "X-X-^X" pattern of antics, where X is a standard action, but ^X is the unexpected (and often humourous) antic. My "Three Amigos" characters are an application of this dramatic pattern.
5. Call for a repeated consistent (and dramatic) action per actor. E.g. one will scratch his head, another will scratch his nose, and the third will scratch the other two's backs.
6. You may want to minimize indirect symbolisms and maximise direct representation. E.g. of indirect symbolism could be... maybe using a black box to represent sin. The link is at best tenuous, and associated solely by colour. (I used this for one service... the kids really caught no ball.)
A better way to symbolize abstract concepts e.g. sin might be... (depending on the context) maybe a ball of chain.... or a deadly disease that turns people into zombies... or maybe a stain that simply won't go off your beautiful dress. Such symbolisms may not be adequate to represent the entire concept of sin, but they work, because these symbols express certain key characteristics of sin via easy-to-grasp real world manifestations.
7. Show, rather than tell. If you have to tell, do it as creatively as possible. One very funny skit I saw last time was that of a bunch of merchants encountering a famous Chinese pirate. Since there were no speaking lines, what the skit team did was to hold up signboards with "subtitles" e.g. "We are on a ship."
"Your money or your life!" and "Oh my goodnesseth."
Ok! I wrote very long. Perhaps you may already know all these tips, but yup! hope it helps... if you can understand what I wrote haha! Do share with me your own insights too with me... Let's help one another WIN for Jesus and the kids! :D
