Bibliodrama · Atlas

1. Introduction

Version followed: Peter Pitzele's North American bibliodrama ("bibliodrama as midrash"), as set out in Scripture Windows: Toward a Practice of Bibliodrama (Peter and Susan Pitzele) and as taught by the Institute for Contemporary Midrash (ICM). Publication details: the Posen Library dates the book 1997 (place given as Katonah, United States); the edition now in print is Ben Yehuda Press, paperback, 25 January 2019, 250 pages, ISBN 9781934730751, which the publisher describes as the official "how to" manual for ICM training seminars [source: Posen Library entry; Ben Yehuda Press page; Bookshop.org listing]. Some listings give 1998 and an Alef Design Group imprint for the first edition; neither is confirmed by a publisher or library catalogue page [uncertain]. The book itself is drawn on only through short excerpts and the InterVarsity quotation compilation, and the step-by-step detail below comes from people who describe or teach Pitzele's method (Unterman; Pohl-Patalong; the Condon/Krondorfer supplement on Blatner's site). ICM's own pages beyond the training page, the Gesellschaft für Bibliodrama and Bibliolog network sites, and sources on individual-therapy use are not drawn on, so statements resting on them keep their earlier sourcing or stay [uncertain]. The separate German-speaking Bibliodrama tradition (Gerhard Marcel Martin, Hilarion Petzold, Gesellschaft für Bibliodrama) and Bibliolog (the short, spoken form of Pitzele's method developed in Germany by Uta Pohl-Patalong and colleagues) are noted where they add procedures, and labelled. [source: Ben Yehuda Press page; Posen Library entry; Pohl-Patalong 2001; Dörnemann 2020]

Bibliodrama is a group role-play in which the roles come from biblical texts: named characters (Adam, Eve, Moses), figures inferred from the story (Noah's wife), minor characters, objects and even figures of speech. Participants step inside a passage and speak in the first person from a chosen moment, filling the places where the text is silent. Pitzele, a Harvard literature PhD who trained in clinical psychodrama and ran the psychodrama department at Four Winds Hospital, began it in 1982 when he had rabbinical students at the Jewish Theological Seminary role-play Moses; he later recognised it as a contemporary, spontaneous form of midrash, the Jewish tradition of filling narrative gaps. [source: Posen Library entry; Yudelson 2012; Unterman, Conversations]

How change happens (as its authors describe it): it is primarily a method of text study and spiritual education, not a psychotherapy. Meaning is generated in the "white fire" (the spaces between the letters) while the "black fire" (the words) sets the boundary. Taking a role lets the role shape the player in turn; interpretations draw on the player's own history, so people meet their own themes behind the "safe mask" of a character, and the group then reflects on what the text showed them about themselves (the "window" and then the "mirror"). Unterman notes it "may verge on the therapeutic". [source: Pitzele quotes compilation (InterVarsity), pp. xv, 3, 64; Unterman, Lookstein 2022; InterVarsity bibliodrama page]

For the psychotherapist: bibliodrama is not a regulated profession and has no licence. Pitzele has said that people need only some study preparation to use the basic techniques (Yudelson 2012). Training exists through the Institute for Contemporary Midrash (ICM: "Essentials of Bibliodrama Directing", about a week, plus 12 to 30-hour community trainings; no certification is mentioned) and, in German-speaking countries, through multi-year Gesellschaft für Bibliodrama courses (Basiskurs plus Aufbaufortbildung) under the European Bibliodrama Network charter. Once you add the deeper psychodramatic tools (doubling, role reversal, protagonist work) or work with clinical groups, you are practising psychodrama or drama therapy: do this only with that training and credential (in the USA, ABE certification as Certified Practitioner requires a related master's degree, 780 training hours and supervised practice; drama therapists hold national credentials such as NADTA RDT or UK HCPC registration). "Psychodrama" is described as a protected professional term. [source: ICM page; Dörnemann 2020; GoodTherapy psychodrama page; synthesis for the boundary rule]

2. Framework

Bibliodrama sessions are single group events or short series rather than a course of therapy. Reported formats: a 5 to 10-minute "bibliodrama moment" inside a lesson; a session of an hour or more; 90 minutes online; 2 hours (introductory) to half a day, with weekends or several days common in Europe; Bibliolog 15 to 30 minutes. Group size: ICM reports 5 to 350; a minimum of 5 or 6 for interaction, 12 to 18 usual in the German tradition (Martin); 4 to 8 online. [source: Unterman, Lookstein 2022; Condon/Krondorfer supplement; ICM page; Dörnemann 2020]

Phases of one session (Pitzele's sequence as reported by Pohl-Patalong and the supplement; German phase names from Dörnemann):

Preparation (leader alone). Choose a passage with tension, conflict, dilemma or growth; study it and its commentaries; identify the gaps you will open; decide the roles and where the story will be paused. Goal: a text you know well and a plan that builds toward the climax rather than starting at it. Move on when you can name 3 to 5 gap moments and the roles for each [synthesis for the criterion]. [source: Unterman, Conversations; Ben Yehuda page; Dörnemann 2020 on exegetical preparation]
Framing and contract. Explain the method, that speaking is voluntary, that all answers are legitimate if they stay within the text, and that silence is welcome. Goal: safety and permission. Move on when people have heard the rules and had a chance to ask or opt out. [source: Unterman, Lookstein 2022; Pohl-Patalong 2001, pp. 274, 282]
Warm-up (in layers). Names and expectations, then spectrograms or a character convention, then a warm-up to the text; in the German tradition, body work to arrive and learn the room. Goal: spontaneity and group cohesion. Larger and first-time groups need longer. Move on when people are talking freely and the energy is on the text [synthesis for the criterion]. [source: Condon/Krondorfer supplement; Dörnemann 2020]
Entry into the text. Tell the situation, read a sentence or short passage, assign everyone a role. [source: Pohl-Patalong 2001, pp. 274–275]
Voicing, echoing and interviewing (the core). Participants speak in role in the first person; the leader echoes and follows up. Repeat through several passages and roles, advancing the story. [source: Pohl-Patalong 2001; Unterman]
Deepening (optional, more psychodramatic). Sculpting, encounters between characters, doubling, role reversal, freezing the play. Pitzele's approach is described as more directive than European ones. [source: Condon/Krondorfer supplement; Unterman; Dörnemann 2020]
Closure in role. Last words, blessings or advice from characters; ritual. [source: Condon/Krondorfer supplement]
Leaving the roles and return to the present. The leader releases the group from roles; in German practice the stage rope is coiled. The many voices are left standing side by side, not merged into one message. [source: Pohl-Patalong 2001, p. 275; Dörnemann 2020]
Sharing and reflection. What players noticed in themselves and others, what shaped how they voiced a character, a personal take-away. [source: Unterman; InterVarsity page; Dörnemann 2020 ("Adams-Arbeit", the naming phase)]

Moving between phases is the leader's judgement; sources give no fixed criteria. Practical markers [synthesis]: move from voicing to deepening only when several people have spoken easily in role and the group trusts you; do not move into personal sharing until everyone is clearly out of role; if affect is rising faster than the group can hold, go back a step (return to the text, give a calmer role) instead of forward.

3. Guiding principles

The text is the boundary (black fire) and the gaps are the field (white fire). Every question you ask should point at a silence in the passage, never contradict its wording. [source: Pitzele quotes compilation, p. 3; Pohl-Patalong 2001, pp. 275, 282–283]
Ordinary people can do what the Sages did. No acting or scholarship is required; treat every participant as a competent interpreter. [source: Yudelson 2012]
Voluntary participation. Everyone may speak, no one must; never run it with unwilling participants. Ask, never press. [source: Pohl-Patalong 2001, p. 282; Condon/Krondorfer supplement; Unterman]
All responses honoured within the text. Echo each contribution as valid; point out gently when an answer contradicts the text; give silly answers less airtime while keeping a serious tone. [source: Unterman, Conversations and Lookstein 2022]
No interpretation from above; plurality left standing. The leader does not present the "right" reading and does not merge voices into one moral. Close without a summary sermon. [source: Pohl-Patalong 2001, pp. 275, 281]
The leader structures, the group fills. Your influence lies in choosing passages, moments and roles, not in the content. [source: Pohl-Patalong 2001, n. 41]
Curiosity as the main tool. Open questions with no obvious answer. [source: Unterman, Lookstein 2022]
It is not acting. People mostly stay seated; one role is often voiced by the whole group, which is also its own audience. Keep it a conversation, not a performance. [source: Unterman, both articles]
Passionate and literate leadership. Bring the text alive without cheapening it; know the scripture thoroughly and be comfortable with spontaneity. [source: Pitzele quotes compilation, p. xxii; Condon/Krondorfer supplement]
Confident, open and relaxed stance; flexible with the unusual, firm when boundaries are crossed. [source: Unterman, Conversations and Lookstein 2022]
Personal material comes through the role. Expect it; do not dig for it unless the contract and your training allow therapeutic work. Unterman notes that Pitzele, as a psychotherapist, will take sessions in more personal directions than she does. [source: Unterman, Conversations]
Respect for faith and religious authority. Workshops are not a means to convince people of a faith's truth; participants' readings are their own midrash, not doctrine. Attribute interpretations to the person or role who voiced them, and leave questions of normative teaching to the participants' own clergy, rabbis or tradition. [source: Krondorfer workshop page (NAU); synthesis for the attribution and authority rule]
Interreligious sensitivity. Pitzele describes the work as interfaith; in German Christian settings the word "midrash" was avoided because it could look like Christian appropriation of a Jewish tradition. Name the tradition a practice comes from and do not borrow another community's sacred categories casually. [source: Yudelson 2012; Pohl-Patalong 2001, p. 273]
Safety and pacing are the leader's responsibility (from psychodrama, which bibliodrama draws on): trust is the precondition for spontaneity; never push toward catharsis; adapt to each person's pace. [source: Orkibi 2025]

4. Intervention inventory

Interventions 1 to 11 are the core of Pitzele's spoken method; 12 to 20 are deepening and closing tools drawn from psychodrama and the wider bibliodrama literature; 21 to 23 are formats and safety procedures. Sources for each are tagged.

4.0 Before any session: screening and setting [synthesis, drawing on psychodrama practice]

Purpose: make sure the group, the text and the frame fit each other. Bibliodrama sources say little about screening; psychodrama sources say members must be screened and prepared and that people in acute crisis may need individual therapy instead. [source: GoodTherapy psychodrama page; synthesis]
Steps: (1) Decide the frame: educational/spiritual group (a congregation, a class) or therapeutic group (your clients). Say which it is in the invitation. (2) For a therapeutic group, assess each member briefly beforehand: current crisis, suicidality, psychosis or dissociation, recent bereavement or abuse that echoes the planned text, religious trauma or recent exit from a faith community, and how the person relates to the text as sacred. (3) Check the passage for trauma content (violence, sexual violence, sacrifice of a child, exile, death of children) and choose another text, or a gentler moment within it, if the group is not ready. (4) Agree confidentiality, the right to pass, and how to signal "stop". (5) In a faith community, agree the frame with the clergy or leadership who hold religious authority there; in mixed-faith groups, say openly that readings voiced are personal, not doctrine.
Example language (illustrative): "This is a way of studying the text from the inside. You can speak or just listen; both are full participation. What anyone says in role is their reading, not a teaching."
Watch for: people who arrive pressured by a partner, parent or community; someone for whom the text is tied to abuse by a religious figure; expectations that this is therapy when it is billed as study, or the reverse.

1. Choosing the text and the moments

Purpose: pick a passage that can carry the group's energy. [source: Unterman, Conversations; ICM page lists choosing suitable passages as a core directing skill]
Steps: (1) Look for tension, conflict, dilemma or personal growth. (2) Work through the passage verse by verse and mark silences: unspoken motives, missing reactions, unnamed people, objects present at the scene. (3) Plan to build gradually: do not open at the height of the drama. (4) Prepare the commentary background so you can hold the text boundary. Pitzele's method also works with non-narrative texts and historical events.
Example language: see interventions 4 and 5.
Watch for: passages so familiar that participants recite the "correct" reading; Unterman reports that a strong education in the right reading can block the flow, while people with weaker biblical backgrounds often do well.

2. Framing the session (the contract)

Purpose: permission, safety and the text boundary. [source: Unterman, Lookstein 2022; Pohl-Patalong 2001, pp. 274, 282]
Steps: (1) Explain in two or three sentences what will happen: you will read a piece of the story, then ask the group to speak as someone in it. (2) State that every answer is legitimate as long as it stays within the text. (3) Say clearly that no one has to speak (Unterman: you do not need to speak at all if shy). (4) Say there is no acting and people can stay seated. (5) Ask for questions.
Example language (illustrative): "I'll read a few lines, then speak to you as if you are someone in the story. Answer in the first person, as 'I'. Anything that fits the text is welcome; there are no wrong answers inside it. Silence is fine."
Watch for: relief when the right to silence is heard (often visible); anyone who looks alarmed at the idea of speaking for a sacred figure (offer an alternative role, see 4).

3. Layered warm-ups

Purpose: build spontaneity, cohesion and readiness for the text. Larger and first-time groups need longer. [source: Condon/Krondorfer supplement; Dörnemann 2020 for body work]
Steps (choose one or more, in this order):
- Layer 1, generic: names, why each person came, what they expect.
- Spectrogram: name two poles (e.g. new to this community / here for decades; never read the Bible / read it daily) and ask people to stand on the line between them; invite a few to say a word about their position. For groups over about 100, use "stand if…" instead.
- Wisdom-text warm-up: each person silently chooses a sacred text that matters to them, then speaks briefly from its role.
- Bible Character Convention: each person chooses a biblical character, mingles and meets others, speaking only in role.
- Guided imagery: a short imaginative entry into the setting before the story is chosen.
- Body warm-up (German tradition): movement to arrive in oneself and the group and to get to know the room.
Example language (illustrative): "Stand on this line: here if you've known this story since childhood, there if you're meeting it fresh today."
Watch for: people who freeze in the character convention (allow them to watch first); in the spectrogram, avoid poles that expose belief or practice in a way that could shame someone in their own community [synthesis].

4. Entering the text and assigning roles

Purpose: move the group from talking about the text to speaking from inside it. [source: Pohl-Patalong 2001, pp. 274–275; Unterman, Lookstein 2022; Posen Library entry]
Steps: (1) Tell the situation briefly and evoke the scene. (2) Open the Bible and read one sentence or a short passage. (3) Address the whole group directly as one character (Pohl-Patalong's example: everyone is addressed as Simon at Jesus' call in Mark 1). (4) Roles can be major or minor characters, objects, or figures inferred from the story (Noah's wife). (5) Later, give the group a new role (the same character later, or another one).
Example language (illustrative): "You are Eve. The serpent has just spoken to you, and the fruit is in your hand."
Watch for: whether people answer as "I" (in role) or slip into "she would…" (commentary). Gently restate in first person; that alone usually brings them in.

5. The gap question (interviewing the role)

Purpose: open a silence in the text so participants fill it. The question is the leader's key tool. [source: Unterman, both articles; Yudelson 2012]
Steps: (1) Find what the text gives and what it leaves out about the character at this moment. (2) Ask an open question with no obvious answer, in second person, to the role. (3) Wait; tolerate silence. (4) Take several answers from different people for the same role.
Example language: Unterman's examples are "Eve, why did you immediately give the fruit to Adam?" and "Cain, what did you say to Abel before you murdered him?" (quoted). Illustrative: "Sarah, what do you not say to Abraham that morning?"
Watch for: answers that are surprising but text-compatible (the method is working); answers that contradict the text (point out the contradiction lightly and invite another try).

6. Voicing in the first person (many voices, one role)

Purpose: let several perspectives on one figure stand side by side. [source: Unterman, Conversations; Pohl-Patalong 2001, p. 274]
Steps: (1) Whoever wants to speaks spontaneously, one after another, as "I". (2) The whole group may voice the same role; voices build on each other. (3) People stay seated; no performance is needed. (4) Pitzele reports that voicing takes players to places they had not been before (quotes compilation, p. 9).
Example language (illustrative): "Who else is Abraham this morning? Another Abraham?"
Watch for: one dominant voice; widen by asking for "a different Abraham" rather than criticising.

7. Echoing

Purpose: validate, amplify and clarify each contribution so the whole group hears it. Pitzele describes echoing as joining the player in role and returning the role heightened and clarified (cited from Pitzele 1998, p. 44, in the Condon/Krondorfer supplement). [source: Unterman, Conversations; Pohl-Patalong 2001, pp. 274–275]
Steps: (1) Move near the speaker. (2) Repeat what they said loudly enough for all, in the first person and in your own words. (3) You may heighten a hinted feeling or sharpen the statement slightly. (4) Check with the speaker that you got it right. (5) Do not take the role away from them or play it "better" than they did. (6) Optionally leave an open half-sentence so they can continue.
Example language (illustrative): Player: "I'm scared." Leader: "I'm afraid of what he's asking of me. Is that it?" Then, if apt: "Afraid of…?"
Watch for: the player nodding and adding more (working); the player correcting you (accept it at once; your echo was off); echoes that slip in your own theology or interpretation (stop; echo only what was offered).

8. Follow-up interviewing

Purpose: deepen a hinted content. [source: Pohl-Patalong 2001, p. 275]
Steps: (1) Pick up a word the player used. (2) Ask one short question about it, still to the role. (3) Accept a pass.
Example language: Pohl-Patalong gives the pattern of asking what the role fears after the role says the call frightens them; illustrative: "You said you were ashamed. Ashamed in front of whom?"
Watch for: follow-ups that move from the character's life to the person's life; in an educational group, keep the question addressed to the role.

9. Advancing the story

Purpose: move through the narrative so the group meets several moments and roles. [source: Pohl-Patalong 2001, p. 275]
Steps: (1) Read the next passage. (2) Give a new role (same character later, or someone else). (3) Repeat voicing, echoing and interviewing. (4) After several sections, move to closure.
Example language (illustrative): "Now the story moves on. You are Hagar, in the desert, with the water gone."
Watch for: pace. Choose the next moment by the group's state as well as the plan; after a heavy moment, pick a role that gives distance (an object, an onlooker) [synthesis].

10. Split-room dialogue

Purpose: bring two perspectives into contact without anyone standing up. [source: Unterman, Lookstein 2022]
Steps: (1) Divide the room in two. (2) Assign each half a character (e.g. Jacob / Esau). (3) Invite one side to speak to the other in role; echo across.
Example language (illustrative): "This side is Jacob, that side is Esau. Esau, what do you want to say to your brother now?"
Watch for: real interpersonal tensions in the group being played out through the roles; name the frame if it gets personal.

11. Voting

Purpose: keep everyone engaged and surface choices quickly; useful online and with quieter groups. [source: Unterman, Lookstein 2022]
Steps: (1) Pose a yes/no question about a character's next choice. (2) Ask for a show of hands. (3) Invite one or two people to explain in role.
Example language (illustrative): "Hands up if you think Joseph will tell his brothers who he is today. You — tell us why, as Joseph."
Watch for: votes that become a public statement of belief; frame the question as about the character, not about faith.

12. Sociometric choice of story or character

Purpose: let the group choose what to explore (a psychodrama-derived step). [source: Condon/Krondorfer supplement]
Steps: (1) After a character warm-up, each person says one thing from their role that they want the group to know. (2) Invite people to move toward (or place a hand on the shoulder of) the character or story they most want to explore. (3) Work with the most chosen.
Example language (illustrative): "Go and stand by the character whose story you want to step into today."
Watch for: extra time needed; people with little Bible familiarity may struggle to choose; an isolated person whom no one chooses (thank every role before moving on) [synthesis for the last point].

13. Sculpting (still image)

Purpose: show relationships between characters in space. Drawn from family therapy and the plastic arts; Pitzele treats every arrangement of bodies in space as a way of seeing the story (paraphrased from Unterman's quotation). In German practice: Standbilder. [source: Unterman, Conversations; Condon/Krondorfer supplement; Dörnemann 2020]
Steps: (1) Ask for volunteers to stand for the characters (or for an object, e.g. the altar, the well). (2) Direct, or let one participant direct, their positions and postures: distance, height, who faces whom. (3) Hold the still image silently for a moment. (4) Ask the audience what they see. (5) Bring it to life if wanted (14). (6) Release each person from their position by name.
Example language (illustrative): "Where does Leah stand in relation to Jacob on the morning after? Closer? Further? Facing him or away?"
Watch for: physical comfort (no strained postures held long); any touch in the sculpture only with explicit consent and an easy alternative such as pointing; people placed as perpetrators or victims who look distressed [synthesis].

14. Bringing a sculpture to life: interviews, soliloquies, encounters

Purpose: move from the still image into words and contact. [source: Condon/Krondorfer supplement]
Steps: (1) Tap a figure and interview it in role (5, 7). (2) Or ask for a soliloquy: the figure speaks its private thoughts aloud. (3) Or let two figures meet and speak to each other (an encounter); echo both.
Example language (illustrative): "Isaac, as you walk beside your father, say out loud what you are thinking but not saying."
Watch for: rising affect in the player rather than the role (tone of voice changes, tears, switching to the person's own life story); slow down and offer distance (15–16 cautions; section 5).

15. Doubling

Purpose: voice a character's inner thoughts. The supplement reports audience members doubling for God when God is concretised in a scene. Note that Pitzele's echoing is itself described as a kind of doubling by the leader. [source: Condon/Krondorfer supplement; Unterman, Conversations; Orkibi 2025 for the psychodrama technique]
Steps: (1) Invite a group member to stand behind or beside a character. (2) They speak a possible inner thought in first person. (3) The character confirms, corrects or ignores it. (4) Several doubles can offer different voices.
Example language (illustrative): "Who will stand beside Moses and speak what he cannot yet say?"
Watch for: doubles projecting their own issues onto a player; the original speaker always has the last word. Doubling and role reversal take the work toward psychodrama: use them in depth only with psychodrama or drama therapy training [synthesis].

16. Role reversal

Purpose: let a player experience the other side of an encounter, including role reversal with God, to search for a response from within. [source: Condon/Krondorfer supplement (citing Nolte, Smallwood and Weistart 1975 on role reversal with God); Dörnemann 2020 ("Rollenwechsel")]
Steps: (1) In an encounter (14), ask the two players to swap places. (2) Each speaks as the other, repeating the last line heard. (3) Swap back and let each respond from their own role.
Example language (illustrative): "Change places. You are now Esau. Jacob has just said… What do you answer?"
Watch for: for many believers, speaking as God or Jesus is unthinkable or deeply sensitive. Always offer it, never assign it; offer alternatives (an angel, a messenger, "the voice from the cloud", or the group voicing together); in faith communities, agree beforehand with the clergy or leaders whether divine roles are acceptable [synthesis]. Role reversal with a figure the player identifies with an abuser is psychodrama work, not bibliodrama.

17. Freezing the play

Purpose: stop the action to look at it, slow it down, or interview. Also a safety tool. [source: Dörnemann 2020 ("Einfrieren des Spiels"); safety use is synthesis]
Steps: (1) Call "freeze". (2) Everyone holds still. (3) Interview, ask the audience, redirect, or release roles.
Example language (illustrative): "Freeze, please. Let's stay right here a moment."
Watch for: use it early rather than late when a scene escalates.

18. Marking the stage and the threshold (German tradition)

Purpose: a clear in-role and out-of-role space. [source: Dörnemann 2020]
Steps: (1) Mark the play space with a rope or bamboo poles. (2) Participants cross a threshold to enter roles. (3) After play, people leave the space and the rope is coiled up before reflection.
Example language (illustrative): "When you step over the rope you are in the story. When you step back you are yourself again."
Watch for: the physical step is a strong de-roling aid; use it even in a seated group (a chair or cloth that marks the role) [synthesis].

19. Other German-tradition tools (named only)

Dörnemann lists role work, creative text work, resonance words ("Resonanzwörter"), masks and still images among Bibliodrama tools, and Krondorfer's workshops use meditations, active imagination, dream work, movement and relaxation. Their step-by-step forms are not given in the sources; learn them in training rather than improvising them. [source: Dörnemann 2020; Krondorfer workshop page (NAU)] [uncertain]

20. Closure in role

Purpose: complete the scene, give silent observers closure, gather what the story gave. [source: Condon/Krondorfer supplement]
Steps (choose one): (1) Ask each character in the scene for one last thing to say. (2) Invite participants to speak as a character offering a blessing or advice to the group. (3) Invite people to thank a character for an insight. (4) A brief ritual fitting the community (the supplement mentions a commitment ritual with the parable of the sower and exchanging a sign of peace); use rituals only where they belong to that group's tradition [synthesis for the last clause].
Example language (illustrative): "Rebecca, one last word before we leave your tent?" / "Is there a character who would like to give us a blessing as we go?"
Watch for: someone still visibly in a painful role; give that role a last word first.

21. Leaving the roles (de-roling) and returning to the present

Purpose: clearly separate the person from the role before reflection. Pitzele's form: the leader releases the group from the roles and leads back to the present; the different statements remain side by side. [source: Pohl-Patalong 2001, p. 275; Dörnemann 2020; Orkibi 2025 (auxiliaries step out of roles at closure); Bailey in K-State 2014]
Steps: (1) Announce that the story is ending. (2) Release the roles explicitly. (3) For anyone who played a role physically or intensely: ask them to step out of the space, say their own name, and say one way they differ from the character [synthesis]. (4) Drama therapy de-roling aids reported by Sally Bailey: shaking the role off the limbs and body; handing back a prop or costume piece. (5) Coil the rope or clear the stage.
Example language (illustrative): "Let's leave Egypt and come back to this room, to today. Leave the role on the chair. Say your own name, and one thing about you that isn't like Pharaoh."
Watch for: people who continue speaking as the character, or who are treated by others as the villain they played; de-role them before anyone shares.

22. Sharing and reflection

Purpose: move from the "window" (inside the story) to the "mirror" (what it showed about us); integrate. [source: Unterman, Conversations (high value on sharing and personal take-away); InterVarsity page; Dörnemann 2020 (reflection phase); Orkibi 2025 for psychodrama sharing rules]
Steps: (1) Ask what people noticed while voicing or watching. (2) Ask what shaped the way they voiced a character. (3) Invite a personal take-away. (4) Ask role-players for role feedback (what it was like to be that character) before personal links. (5) Apply the psychodrama rule: speak from your own experience; no analysis, criticism, advice or interpretation of what others said or of their faith.
Example language (illustrative): "What did you discover about this story by being inside it? Did any role touch something in your own life, if you'd like to say?"
Watch for: debates about the "right" reading or doctrine (redirect: "what did you notice in yourself?"); a participant whose sharing opens trauma (section 5).

23. Formats: the bibliodrama moment, Bibliolog, online

Bibliodrama moment: a 5 to 10-minute insertion in an ordinary lesson or study: one passage, one role, two or three gap questions, echo, return to the lesson. [source: Unterman, Lookstein 2022]
Bibliolog: Pitzele's spoken form as used in German churches and schools, including in worship: seated, 15 to 30 minutes, prologue to the situation, roles to the whole congregation, voicing, echoing, interviewing, release from the roles. [source: Pohl-Patalong 2001; Dörnemann 2020]
Online: 4 to 8 people, turn-taking, emotions written in the chat, voting to keep others engaged, sessions of about 90 minutes. [source: Unterman, Lookstein 2022]
With children and teenagers: Unterman reports that school-age children engage and can answer deeply, and that self-conscious teenagers may connect less well. [source: Unterman, Lookstein 2022] Safeguarding [synthesis]: obtain parent or carer consent and the child's assent, avoid texts of violence or sexual content with younger groups, keep personal sharing light, and follow your local safeguarding and mandatory-reporting duties if a child discloses harm through a role. Never treat what a child says in role as evidence of abuse; respond to any direct disclosure in the usual way.
Materials and space [synthesis]: clear the floor of trip hazards before movement or sculpting; chairs for anyone who cannot stand; no lit candles or fire in enactment; check that props are not sacred objects whose handling the community restricts.

5. Handling problems

The bibliodrama sources address only a few of these problems (silence, contradicting or silly answers, teenagers, fit of participants). Everything else here is marked [synthesis] and draws on general group and psychodrama practice.

Silence, nobody speaks. Re-state that silence is welcome, then lower the threshold: a smaller gap question, a yes/no vote (11), a role that is an object or onlooker, or a one-word answer. Wait longer than feels comfortable before rescuing. [source: Unterman, both articles; synthesis]
People recite the "correct" or learned reading. Treat it as a valid voice, echo it, then ask for "another Sarah" or move to a moment the commentaries say little about; Unterman notes that strong training in the right reading can obstruct the flow. [source: Unterman, Lookstein 2022; synthesis]
Answers that contradict the text. Point to the verse and invite another answer within it; do not shame. [source: Unterman, Conversations]
Silly or flippant answers. Give them less attention and keep a serious tone; avoid a judgmental reaction that would make others feel unsafe. [source: Unterman, both articles]
One or two people dominate. Ask for voices not yet heard, split the room (10), or use voting. [synthesis]
Participants feel the method is irreverent or fear speaking for God or a holy figure. Acknowledge the concern as legitimate; restate that the words on the page are not changed and that voiced lines are personal readings, not doctrine; offer roles of humans, objects or onlookers; never require a divine role. Where a clergy member or community leader is present, let them set what is acceptable in that setting. Attribute every reading to the role or person who voiced it, and do not present the session's readings as what a tradition teaches. [synthesis; source for the text-as-boundary point: Pitzele quotes compilation, p. 3]
Theological dispute or offence between participants (e.g. a Jewish-Christian group disagreeing over a reading, or someone offended by another's voicing). Stop the debate format; return to "what did you notice in yourself"; name that several readings can stand side by side, as the method intends; if hurt has occurred, acknowledge it directly and let the offended person speak in their own voice. [source for plurality: Pohl-Patalong 2001, p. 275; remainder synthesis]
Overwhelm or retraumatisation (tears that escalate, shaking, flashback signs, panic, dissociation such as staring or not responding). Bibliodrama sources only note that sessions can verge on the therapeutic; this guidance is [synthesis] from trauma-informed group practice: (1) freeze the action (17); (2) take the person out of role at once, by name, and bring them back to the room (feet on the floor, look around, say where they are, what day it is); (3) offer a co-leader or trusted person to sit with them, inside or outside the room, and keep the rest of the group safe and occupied with a gentle, distanced role or a pause; (4) do not continue the scene that triggered it and do not turn it into a protagonist drama unless you are a trained psychodramatist working in a therapeutic contract; (5) de-role everyone who played opposite them; (6) in sharing, protect the person from analysis or advice; (7) check in privately before they leave, ask about safety, and arrange follow-up with their own therapist or pastoral carer; in a therapeutic group, assess risk in the usual way, including suicide risk if indicated.
Personal disclosure in or after role (abuse, grief, religious harm). Thank them, keep it brief in the group, check later in private; safeguarding and mandatory-reporting duties apply as in any setting; for children and vulnerable adults follow local procedures. [synthesis]
A participant stays stuck in a role or is treated by others as the character (the one who played Cain, Judas, Pharaoh). Do explicit de-roling (21) before sharing; ask the group to address the person by name; let the player say what they are not. [source: Bailey in K-State 2014; synthesis]
The leader is drifting into therapy without a contract. Unterman reports that Pitzele, a psychotherapist, goes further into personal material than she does, and that how far to go depends on the facilitator. Practical rule [synthesis]: in an educational or congregational group, keep questions addressed to the role and keep personal sharing optional and brief; deeper personal work belongs only in a contracted therapy group run by a trained psychodramatist or drama therapist.
Your echo misrepresents someone (a small rupture). Accept their correction at once, echo it again in their words, and thank them; never defend your version. [source: Unterman, Conversations (check the echo with the speaker); synthesis]
Real group conflict comes out through the roles. Name the frame lightly ("Jacob and Esau are getting heated"), freeze if needed, and use closure in role and de-roling before talking about it out of role. [synthesis]
Unwilling participants or non-attendance (e.g. students required to attend). Do not run the method with unwilling participants; offer observer roles or note-taking, or choose a different activity. [source: Condon/Krondorfer supplement]
Self-conscious teenagers. Use the seated spoken form, object roles, written answers or voting rather than standing enactment; keep personal sharing optional. [source: Unterman, Lookstein 2022 (teenagers' self-consciousness); synthesis for responses]
Clients with religious trauma or who have recently left a faith community. Do not use sacred texts with them in a group without a prior individual conversation about what the text means to them; offer non-sacred stories instead or leave them free to watch. [synthesis]
Using it in individual therapy. The sources describe group work only. If you adapt it one-to-one (the client voices several roles, you echo), treat it as drama-therapy or psychodrama practice that requires that training, and keep the same text boundary, consent and de-roling steps. [synthesis] [uncertain]

Sources

Sources: