DATE: Sunday, March 30, 1997                TAG: 9703300059

SECTION: LOCAL                   PAGE: B3   EDITION: FINAL 

SOURCE: BY DIANE TENNANT, STAFF WRITER 

                                            LENGTH:   76 lines

BEACH PLAY WILL SPREAD THE GOSPEL WORLDWIDE

From a humble beginning in Virginia Beach, ``The Man Called Jesus'' hits the road this spring, spreading the gospel worldwide through drama, starting with Murmansk, Russia.

The passion play has been an enormous success in Hampton Roads, playing at Eastertime for the past 13 years, usually to sold-out crowds at Kempsville Presbyterian Church. Written by Virginia Beach resident Marie Umidi, ``The Man Called Jesus'' tells the story of the Christian Messiah's final days, leading up to his crucifixion and resurrection.

It has been so successful - attracting busloads of visitors this year from Pennsylvania and the Carolinas - that Umidi decided to use it as an international evangelism tool. Part of the 175-member cast, which includes people from 12 different churches, will travel to Murmansk in May in teach a Christian church there how to do the production itself.

The choice of Murmansk came about through a chance meeting in 1989 between a Soviet sailor seeking pink lipstick and Joan Wilson, choreographer for the passion play.

The sailor, Ivan Tkash, was a crewman aboard one of the first Soviet warships to dock in Norfolk in more than 100 years. A dancer with their Navy's cultural exchange troupe, he came up to Wilson and her husband, Wesley, during a song-and-dance presentation at the Virginia Beach Oceanfront. Please, he said, I need to buy pink lipstick for my wife.

``We live in Norfolk, we didn't have a clue,'' Wilson recalled. ``So we grabbed his hand and we're running down the street asking people where can we buy lipstick.''

They found a drug store, and helped Tkash buy three tubes. Wilson was enchanted with the experience.

She had been interested in Russia for years, dating from her childhood training in classical ballet. She had wanted to spread the gospel there, and she had some Bibles written in Russian. She gave them to Tkash and his shipmates.

``They had never laid eyes on a Bible in their own language in their whole lives,'' Wilson said. ``They were scared to take them but they were willing to take the risk.''

Glasnost had loosened restrictions on religion by the late 1980s but many Russians still did not feel free to practice their faith openly.

The Wilsons and Tkash exchanged letters over the years, and finally visits. Tkash arranged for his American friends to meet a Christian pastor in Murmansk.

Wilson was impressed with the Russians' dedication to the performing arts, and to their hunger for religion. The Russians were impressed with Wilson's use of dance in worship. When she offered to teach them the words, music and dance to ``The Man Called Jesus,'' 104 church members signed up.

In the meantime, the local success of the passion play had led Umidi to form a non-profit international ministry in September 1996. ``It's always been a desire of mine that we would somehow take the production into the unreached areas of the world,'' Umidi said. ``This is such a strong visual presentation of the gospel that if we could get it into the unreached nations it would be a very strong tool of evangelism.''

On a budget of $50,000, nearly all of which comes from local ticket sales of ``The Man Called Jesus,'' Umidi and crew will train the Russian church members to perform the play. The Russians will then give free performances to their city.

``We've also made a wonderful contact with the director of the city drama department,'' Umidi said. ``He's a Russian Jew. He said to me, `Your Jesus was a Jew like me?' He was astounded to know that Jesus was a Jew.''

This summer, Umidi will teach drama as a worship tool in Pretoria, South Africa. ``The Man Called Jesus'' will go to Israel in November.

``So this one friendship with this one dancer, it's just like a little pebble being thrown into a pond and the ripples just keep going out and out,'' Wilson said. ``I credit God for doing all of this. None of this was by chance.'' ILLUSTRATION: BETH BERGMAN/File photo

``A Man Called Jesus,'' written by Beach resident Marie Umidi, has

played for 13 years in Hampton Roads. After a chance 1989 meeting

of a Russian sailor and the choreographer, the play will entertain

audiences in Russia.

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