
DATE: Friday, November 14, 1997             TAG: 9711130272

SECTION: PORTSMOUTH CURRENTS     PAGE: 06   EDITION: FINAL 

TYPE: COVER STORY 

SOURCE: BY REBECCA MYERS CUTCHINS, STAFF WRITER 

                                            LENGTH:  114 lines

THE FAMILY THAT PLAYS TOGETHER EACH ONE OF THE BOHNHOFFS HAS A ROLE IN ``THE MAN CALLED JESUS''

JEAN BOHNHOFF surprised herself when she wept through one of the scenes in a play she had seen dozens of times.

It was the scourging scene from ``The Man Called Jesus,'' a passion play presented annually by Kempsville Presbyterian Church.

``Every day, something new happens working on this show,'' said Bohnhoff, who serves as the production's prop master. ``And every day, God reveals himself stronger and stronger to the audience and to the people participating in the show.''

Such is the reason Bohnhoff and her family have volunteered to work with the play since seeing it for the first time three years ago.

``It brought the Bible alive for me,'' said Bohnhoff, who moved with her family from Kempsville to Port Norfolk in May. ``It made Jesus a real person and not just a story to me. And the stories in the Bible became real, and I just knew I had to be a part of it.''

In ``The Man Called Jesus,'' the life and story of Christ is re-enacted from birth to resurrection using three multimedia screens, special effects and authentic Hebrew dancing and costumes.

Since its debut in 1985, the play has been seen by more than 100,000 people in Hampton Roads. It became such an enormous success that organizers formed an international ministry last year to take the show on the road.

When the show travels abroad, Jean's husband, Scott, plays Jesus and also helps behind the scenes.

``My husband is a carpenter, and he's gone into business for himself so it would be easier for him to leave when he needed to leave and go tour,'' Jean said.

When the production appears locally right before Easter, the Bohnhoffs' 9-year-old daughter, Moriah, plays a Hebrew dancer. Son Greg, 19, works behind the scenes, running the spotlight and camcorder.

Since both the Bohnhoff children are in school, they were not able to travel to Israel with their parents, who left Thursday with about 50 other cast and crew members to perform the play for an Arab audience in Bethlehem and for Russian Jews in Tiberias.

Because the play is narrated, its script can be translated into different languages, while the actors pantomime to the narration.

But the children did participate in a special performance held last Friday night at Willett Hall in Portsmouth to a capacity crowd.

The play was brought to Portsmouth by 14 local churches, which agreed to underwrite the show's expenses.

``We had to turn people away,'' said Terry Alvanzo, facility manager at Willett Hall, which seats 2,000. ``The show started at 7:30, and at 6 o'clock, there were about 500 people in the hall, so we knew right then that we were going to be at capacity.''

The full house didn't faze Moriah, a fourth-grader.

``When I'm dancing, I love to see the people there in the audience,'' she said. ``It's amazing to me that I'm actually doing this. . . . I'm not very shy when I'm dancing.''

As Moriah danced, her older brother, Greg, videotaped the Willett Hall production and shot clips of the audience.

The footage will be used in a promotional video about the ministry, a nonprofit organization that survives primarily through donations.

``I've been doing this kind of stuff, believe it or not, since I was 13,'' said Greg, who studied television production at a vocational education school. ``When we first started going to church, there was a man there who asked me to start helping out with the sound system in our church, so I'd help set it up and tear it down every Sunday.''

Greg also has worked the lights for productions at Regent University and the Founders Inn theaters, he said.

The children's father, Scott Bohnhoff, said he had no interest in acting before landing the role of Jesus in the international productions.

The Willett Hall show was the second time Scott has played the Christian Messiah.

``I did it when we went to Turkey two years ago and kind of fell into it again,'' Scott said.

After spending 12 days in Western Turkey, requests to do the show came flooding in from other parts of the world: Africa, Southeast Asia and South America.

About two years ago, a young Russian minister came to America to translate the show into Russian. And last May, it was taken to Murmansk, Russia, where members of a church were taught to do the production themselves.

``We also have an Arabic script completed, and we're about to finish our Mandarin script,'' Marie Umidi told the Willett Hall audience Friday night. Umidi wrote the play, directs it and is now president of the international ministry.

Umidi expects more than 2,000 spectators in Manger Square for the Bethlehem premiere and at least that many in Tiberias.

``I want you to know that this is a missions tool to reach the nations,'' Umidi told the audience.

After returning from Israel, the team will leave again after Thanksgiving to train 60 churches in St. Petersburg, Russia, to do the production.

``We have it in our heart to tell this simple, gospel story that does not change to as many people as we can for as long as we can until there's no time left,'' Umidi said. ``It's a simple story. And thousands have never heard it before.''

Jean Bohnhoff says the goals of the mission are twofold:

``We use our drama and music and dance to teach the world about the life of Jesus, about who he was. But we also go into other countries, and we'll teach them how to do the play. . . .

``All of us who work here are volunteers, so we've all had to make a lot of sacrifices to be here, but we believe in what we're doing.'' ILLUSTRATION: Photo by GARY C. KNAPP

Sheryl Cook, back left, and Dale McCarthy make up Scott Bohnhoff as

Marie Umidi, sitting, Karen Hammersly and Rachel Torrech, age 11,

sing before the play.

Ralph Torrech, right, sits outside the makeup room, ready to perform

his role of the apostle Simon in ``The Man Called Jesus.''

Jean Bohnhoff, left, the prop master for ``The Man Called Jesus,''

examines the lyrics to songs that will be projected to the back of a

transparent screen so the audience can sing along. Bohnhoff's

husband, Scott, is playing the lead role in the performance.