[xtypo_dropcap]B[/xtypo_dropcap]randon Sullivan (23) was often cast as Jesus Christ in the Youth Theatre of his town, Exton, PA. He attended St. Paul’s Lutheran Church there.
He says, “We did a variety of plays over the years, including Rock Nativity,
Cotton Patch Gospel and Joseph and the Technicolor Dream Coat….” These three
main productions had up to 80 youth on the stage…but our first and favorite play was Godspell.
“The plays were cast in the 70’s tradition, with clown or tie-and-dye costumes; the frames were airy as in Shakespeare’s Midsummer Night’s Dream with Rock Music, interspersed with serious scenes from the Story of Jesus.”
“We would often form a smaller group of 15-20 over the summer to perform Godspell at various churches in the Philadelphia area.
“This allowed us to meet lots of new people and reach out to different congregations and people in need.
“Some shows were performed for special needs children, or people with varying disabilities so it was great to spread the message of the gospel to so many different groups.”
In Brandon’s life there was a connection between playacting and work at college. If you cannot walk on water as Jesus did, or float on a reed as in the folktale, you can at least design bridges.
As an undergraduate at Lehigh University in Bethlehem, PA, Brandon majored in structural engineering because he was very interested in designing bridges.
“Each year I participated in the National Student Steel Bridge Competition to design a 20-foot model steel bridge that had to meet many different dimensional constraints.
