Christmas in Hell

"Has anyone seen Jesus?" calls a stagehand. "Yo, son of God."

Shrader, in Carhartt overalls over a white undershirt, is wearing his crotch-vise of a harness and taking flight pointers from Rebmann. "If everything's not in the right place [when the lines start lifting], it's too late," Rebmann tells him, motioning around Shrader's pelvis.

They send Shrader up to the balcony, where the harness around his waist attaches with rock-climbing clips to a flying line on each hip. Four technical assistants will hoist him into the air -- two will control his descent from the balcony, one will unfurl the lines that send him sliding down a metal scaffolding to the stage, and a fourth spins him so that he faces either the stage or the audience.

From the balcony, Shrader flashes a grin. He seems calm enough.

Since taking on the role of Jesus, though, Shrader has felt an unexpected side effect. Portraying this part puts him on the front line of a spiritual war that's always raging, he says. At first, he found it hard to pray. Demonic forces were sabotaging him, he says. "I couldn't concentrate on what I wanted to pray on. It was like something was there, confusing it. So I literally had to force myself to pray, and once I started praying, it broke. I was, like, man, what was that?"

Laterra, the director, says it's common for her actors to be "attacked" in the weeks before production -- financially, physically or spiritually -- by forces that don't want to see the play go on.

But Shrader is ready. It's too cold now for him to be tempted to ride his Harley, and that's a good thing for a while. "That bike scares me sometimes. It makes me borderline. I can feel Jesus riding with me sometimes, and sometimes I'll run into old friends on the road and they'll look at me like, 'Man, what did we ever do to you?' And it's hard to tell 'em no, but you gotta know where to draw the line."

Shrader rises off his feet, then about 3 feet in the air. "How does it feel?" a crew member asks. "OK," he replies weakly. He cups both hands around his mouth, hiding his words from the flight technicians, and mouths, "It hurts!"

He goes up in the air and floats slowly down, making his way toward the stage. Tentatively, he puts his arms in the air, not like Superman but palms extended in a blissed-out way. As his sneakers graze the stage floor, Shrader says, "I'm not supposed to cuss anymore, but -- " A waving lock of hair covers his whispered last word as he scrabbles for the ground.

"I'm going to be singing soprano," he says. "I've just gotta think positive."

From Grandpa's wheelchair, Bostwick is also harnessed and ready to practice flying.

"One of these days, we'll be able to do this without cables," he says.

Tribulation Christmas performances are December 17-19 at the Sheffield Family Life Center.