Scene Stealing through Pride

One of the cardinal rules of improvisational theater is that actors must never steal scenes. In her book Improvisation for the Theater, Viola Spolin bluntly puts it this way: “Any player who ‘steals’ a scene is a thief.” On the stage, not stealing scenes is necessary to keep the performance going.

In God’s drama, the same rule applies for a different reason. When we try to steal a scene—when we fail to live in humility—we are stealing the at-…