By Suzie Nixon Flaherty
Special to the Tribune
Photo courtesy Melissa Elzey. The Mountain City Playhouse will host this year’s local performance of “Jesus’ Last Days” on April 4 and April 5.
Lights are hung! Stages are in place! Songs and scenes are being rehearsed!
And the dedication to portraying the love of Christ is alive in Mountain City.
The scene is being set for the production of “Jesus’ Last Days,” the stage rendition of the 41-year-old outdoor passion drama, His Last Days. The drama returns to the Mountain City Playhouse for its third year, complete with new and all-time favorite songs, as well as revised and renewed narration.
This year’s performance boasts a “theater in the round’ setting that will give the audience an intimate feeling. Being up close and personal with the cast enhances the already powerful and moving effect of the drama.
This year the stage performance, “Jesus’ Last Days,” will be April 4 and April 5 at 7 p.m. each night, at the Mountain City Playhouse, located at 186 Playhouse Drive, Clayton.
The setting will give performance goers the opportunity to be immersed in the drama. Through narration, music, singing, and dancing, the cast portrays the sacrifice and love that Jesus showed as He lived out His passion. This year’s stage performance will be like none other this all-volunteer cast has done. The closeness of the audience will certainly prove to be moving and life-changing.
The vision that began at Cove Crest Retreat, over 40 years ago, has flourished through the continued running of the outdoor drama on Labor Day weekend, in Tallulah Falls, to include the stage performance, housed in Mountain City.
Many of the cast have been with the drama from its inception, growing up with the performances and becoming part of what the cast refers to as their “drama family.”
This drama family “means everything to me,” Midnitte Rayvynn explained.
Participating in the drama for over 25 years, Rayvynn recalled how her drama family has been there for her through “some hard times.”
“I don’t know what I would have done without them,” she said.
Darren Volk, whose mother Jan Volk began the ministry with the visionary founder, Carol Murphy, exclaimed, “I literally grew up in the drama.”
Children are born into the drama and grow up participating in its summer production into adulthood. They then return with their own families to carry on the ministry.
His Last Days Ministries touches and changes lives in numerous ways. The ministry has expanded its outreach to include a collaboration that reaches Western North Carolina and local charities.
Participants in both the drama and the ministry feel the effects of sharing Christ’s love in their lives, and in the lives of others. It is truly a blessing to experience.
Tickets for the performance are on sale now. Admission is $15 for ages 10 years and up. Children 9 years and under are free. Childcare will be provided. Call 706-969-2777 to reserve seats. Email mountaincityplayhouse@gmail.com for more information. Visit www.mountaincityplayhouse.com for any upcoming events and more details on Jesus’ Last Days 2025.