Bystanders

2008

The Bystanders is a collection of monologues spoken by unnamed people who were present at events in Christ's life and ministry but whose own stories went unrecorded — figures such as the manager of the Upper Room, an adolescent friend, a neighbor, Peter's mother-in-law, an impetuous young girl, a Temple merchant, a graveyard grounds keeper, and the keeper of a cloth. Each piece stands on its own, with the figure of Christ being the only thing the speakers have in common, and the separate monologues may be presented in any order or even separately. Two forms of the work survive in the archive: a 2008 musical, preserved through its demo recordings with a song for each character, and a spoken drama version (catalog #808L) excerpted from The Drama Treasure Chest.

Ken's author's note frames the piece with a true story: when former President Ronald Reagan visited Ken's rural Illinois school, the most fascinating account of the day came not from the network news but from Dick Lippert, the school custodian — a "bystander" whose name never made the official reports.

The 2008 Musical

The musical survives in the archive primarily as a set of demo recordings made in February 2008. No script, program, or cast list for this version has been recovered, but the tracks tell their own story: a musical built around a gallery of named characters, each given a song of their own. The recordings open with an Intro and move through a sequence of character pieces — Erich, Serena, Denise, Jaymee, Bob, Bill, and Sylvia — before closing with a Finale. Additional working tracks labeled "boy," "girl," "new intro," and "outro" (with and without voice) point to a score that was still being shaped and revised as the show came together. A companion demo titled The Bystanders and dated February 26, 2008 sits in collaborator Roger Wainwright's music archive, from the same production cycle and associating Wainwright with the music.

Songs

Intro
Erich
Serena
Denise
Jaymee
Bob
Bill
Sylvia
Finale

The Drama Version (#808L)

The spoken drama version is published as an excerpt from The Drama Treasure Chest, a two-act play by Ken Bradbury and Robert L. Crowe (Copyright Library of Congress 2007; ISBN 0-9748830-5-0). Its monologues are voiced by bystanders from Christ's life, and — true to the form — they may be presented in any order or even separately:

The Manager — the adult male manager of the Upper Room
The Buddy — an adolescent boy
The Neighbor — a young mother
The Mother in Law — Peter's feisty mother-in-law
The Front Runner — an impetuous young girl
The Merchant — a fiery adult male
The Grounds Keeper — a rough-hewn male
The Keeper of the Cloth — Lydia, a middle-aged or older woman

The author's staging notes suggest that biblical costuming is appropriate but contemporary clothing may play better, and that a bit of music between scenes provides nice transitions. Spoken-word recordings of several of these monologues — the Grounds Keeper, the Keeper of the Cloth, the Neighbor, and the Mother in Law — survive in the archive, dated 2009 (the Mother in Law recorded in two passes, January 27 and July 13, 2009).

The drama's character set (Manager, Buddy, Neighbor, Mother in Law, Front Runner, Merchant, Grounds Keeper, Keeper of the Cloth) is distinct from the 2008 musical's song titles.

Production Notes

No director, performing cast, venue, or producing organization is named in any of the surviving sources for either form of the work.

In 2025 the Foundation's performance script was rediscovered, and the Ken Bradbury Foundation brought The Bystanders back to the stage on a Pike County tour — performing it in Perry, Griggsville, and Pittsfield, Illinois.