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TechnoratiARVADA, Colo. (AP) - To get to heaven, Steve Erickson must climb a narrow ladder, clamber onto a catwalk and duck under a black curtain. The clouds in heaven are rolled cotton, and the stars are white Christmas lights poking out of the wall, which are supposed to look like the night sky over Bethlehem.
Erickson, 57, is comic relief in the annual Christmas pageant at Arvada Covenant Church, a medium-sized evangelical church in a middle-class Denver suburb. His role is Harold, Angel Second Class Cloud Stomper. He tosses fake snow from the pockets of a rented white suit when an alarm goes off.
Each year, churches large and small stage Christmas dramas, plays and musicals like this one to unite their people in common purpose, have a little fun or get non-churchgoers in the door, ideally for good.
This year, fallout from the nation's battered economy has brought added drama.
Some amateur Marys, Josephs and Bob Cratchits are enduring their own hard times. For them, the stage provides escape into someone else's skin, a support network that might have disappeared along with a job, and a chance to deepen their spirituality at a trying time of year. For many families in the audience, the performances are free entertainment when tickets to "The Nutcracker" are a luxury.
All those things are true at Arvada Covenant Church, which staged the musical comedy "Bethlehem's Big Night" last weekend after months of planning and practice.
One innkeeper's wife has a 9-month-old baby and can't find work, but she chipped in making costumes and props. The understudy to Mary's mother was laid off and her husband moved out of state to find work, but she was still backstage memorizing lines at the last rehearsal.
And Harold the Cloud Stomper lost his job almost a year ago.
It's almost curtain, and the church auditorium is filling. Most of the cast and choir have invited neighbors and co-workers. Residents of Covenant Village Retirement Home arrive in a bus.
Mary Cunningham, the church's worship arts director, huddles backstage with her cast. She prays that God help them be real and authentic, use the talents he provided them, and draw people closer to him.
Some churches go all-out for their Christmas pageants, even stationing live camels in the parking lot.
Arvada Covenant Church posted a Craigslist ad seeking donated fake fur for shepherds' vests. When that failed, the church used coupons from a fabric store.
"People pull together," Cunningham said before a rehearsal. "We were just talking, and our church budget is like everyone else's right now. We're behind the eight ball. Yet, you know, everyone pitches in."
The play opens with a scene from Bethlehem Marketplace, with town boosters extolling its virtues.
A dramatic tension is introduced: A pair of competing inns, the Bethlehem Inn and Motel Six Shekels, offer in-room coffee and free hay for camels in a battle for customers. Times are tough in Bethlehem.
"Economic turmoil, political chaos," one character says. "Some things never change."
Act 1, Scene 2. The setting: heaven. The lights come up on Harold, Angel Second Class Cloud Stomper.
He is flat on his stomach tossing hail on the people of earth this angel has little regard for.
Another angel, Alvin, appears with a newspaper. There is big news in heaven: God is going down there, the planet of the people, and few special effects are planned. These angels aren't even invited.
Some cloud-stomping ensues, snow falls, the lights go dark, and Erickson disappears down the ladder.
He has 90 minutes until his next scene. Downstairs in the makeup room, Erickson sits back in a folding chair and describes his character as "goodhearted, but a little bit slow."
His kids' friends know him as "that crazy guy in the plays." But Erickson said he's shy. He grew more comfortable in the spotlight after graduating from college and taking a job with Youth for Christ.
"Working in a production like this year in and year out, you really do create a community," Erickson said. "Especially in our society, it's so easy to be lost in anonymity.
"This offers the community a chance to see a little bit of the church," he said. "It's not just holy people doing spiritual things. It's real people living real lives who have issues, but also have each other."
On Jan. 1, Erickson lost his job with a real estate development company. But he and his wife, Dawn, who was laid off from a parks and recreation district, didn't panic.
They were good savers. Their financial adviser said they were OK. Suddenly given free time, the couple traveled to Burma and Thailand to help with cyclone relief.
Then the news about Wall Street hit. Their 401(k) started to disappear. And it became clear that retirement might have to wait.
Erickson is back earning money consulting part-time with his old company, and he said taking part in the Christmas play has helped in other ways.
"You have to focus on what you're doing and take your mind off the other things," he said.
Yet he also knows that hard times are all relative, that he and his wife are better off than many.
One rehearsal was interrupted when a stranger walked in.
"I'm really sorry to bother you," the man said. "I was just laid off, my wife has been laid off, my daughter lost her job, and we have a family of seven. I've got a 2-year-old and a baby that's six months."
He needed diapers, toilet paper, milk, infant formula. He needed everything.
Practice came to a halt. The food bank was opened. A choir member dug a few dollars out of his wallet.
"You need to buy diapers and milk for your kids," he said.
Near the end of "Bethlehem's Big Night," Harold, Angel Second Class Cloud Stomper is back in heaven, sitting on a bench, eating cotton candy and cracking more jokes.
Sometimes, Erickson worries that the message gets lost in the gags and laughs. But, he said, sometimes you need gags and laughs to get people's attention.
Down on stage, a crowd gathers in the manger around Mary, Joseph and an infant. The baby Jesus -- in real life, the eight-week-old son of a church couple -- cries softly.
"Is that?" says Harold. "But .... How'd he get in there? He's so tiny."
Afterward, Erickson reflects on the power of that moment for him, which he hopes the audience felt.
"You hear a lot about the baby Jesus, the baby Jesus," he said. "But a lot of times, there's a disconnect between God and who that baby is. It's not just a symbol. It's God. It's a mind-blowing concept."
His lines finished, the pageant coming to an end, Harold the Cloud Stomper takes his place in heaven and joins the rest of the cast in song: "O come, all ye faithful, joyful and triumphant ..."
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