Enacted Prayer is a style of improvised physical prayer developed in the 90's by the Theatre Department at Northwestern College in Iowa (under the direction of Jeff Barker). I was first exposed to it at the Christians in Theatre conference in Irvine, (CITA, 2003), and subsequently had one of the Northwestern graduates teach a workshop with some of the Christians I work with from Singapore churches. I've since had a chance to teach Enacted Prayer with Senior Theatre Majors at the Wesley Institute for Ministry and the Creative Arts (Sydney, Australia), at the CRM Worldwide conference (June 2006), and the new course I teach: Performing Arts and Ministry Applications at TCA College in Singapore (Theological Centre for Asia, Certificate in Creative Arts Ministry).
Enacted Prayer came out of a form of improvised and highly ritualistic theatre called Playback Theatre. Playback is used in community settings to improvise plays from stories told by the audience. It was originally developed in the 70's by Jonathan Fox in New York State (they have numerous annual residential training sessions at Syracuse University). Though I haven't had a chance to study in New York, I am a member of the International Playback Theatre Network and spent a year training and performing with Tapestry Playback Theatre in Singapore. I've had a chance to explore it as a means of expressing Christian faith and our Christian experience in an orphanage in Cambodia, with children in an International Christian School, and in the college classroom. I've found a link to one video online that gives & shows a decent description of it, while expressing the heart of what playback practitioners are hoping to accomplish.
I'm excited to meet with church drama leaders in USA and have another chance to share about some new theatre forms with great ministry potential. It will be fun to give it a try, if you're game, and discuss how you see it being used in the American church context.
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