Copyright (c) 2026: Charles Daniel Jewell
JFK: Light the World
Copyright (c) 2026: Charles Daniel Jewell
Sample Excerpts from the Play
Passages From the Prologue: Processional and Invocation
Scene: Imagine an early morning sunrise of this year’s or any future year’s November 22nd. There is an elevated space of various levels surrounding an open center space. Just above the highest level in the center, an image of President John F. Kennedy comes into focus on a large TV screen that is visible to the whole audience...
As the theme melody plays, all the actors enter in a slow, processional manner through the audience and climb the few stairs to the stage, moving toward their places on the various levels of the set. They wear formal clothing – matching dark suits and ties or tuxedos for the males and off-white, gray, navy blue, or black sheath gowns for the females. The JFK image remains on the screen during the Prologue until another image replaces it; other images are projected on this screen as the play progresses. After all actors are in place, the organ music fades out. ...
Male Leader of Chorus
Almighty God of the Universe and all dimensions,
God of whatever is more and whatever is less,
God of all beings and all consciousnesses --
We lift our arms to you in supplication….
Male Leader of Chorus
Please bless our endeavor to honor the memory of a beloved man,
John F. Kennedy,
And through that remembrance
Help us rise above our deep partisan divisions
To be united as Americans again….
(Kennedy photo portrait from Warren Commission Files projected on large flat screen.)
Female Leader of Chorus
We shall remember his heroic life
And his memory’s continuing rebirth.
We shall remember our hard grief,
And our righteous anger,
We shall remember
The terrible aftermath...
We shall remember all this and more
As our journey takes us
Beyond the utmost bound of human thought
And into the vast, archetypal
Sea of Myth.
Passages From Part One: JFK’s Speeches and Deeds
Female Leader of Chorus
Now, when the center cannot hold,
When Hope has been betrayed,
And Love sacrificed,
Now when vendetta and hatred prevail,
Now when most of the old heroic voices
Are only echoes from far distant hills
All Actors as Chorus
Now when most of the old heroic voices
Are only echoes from far distant hills…
Passages From Part Two: JFK’s Speeches and Deeds
Male Leader of Chorus
We return to the beginning point of this Tragic Cycle of American History
As we remember the life and times of John F. Kennedy,
The 35th President of the United States…
We remember his military service, and his Presidency,
What he said, what he did.
Male Actor Two
(Male Actor Two begins a round of quotations from JFK speeches and descriptions of some of his actions and deeds; the speech excerpts should be spoken as public speeches, loudly and with gestures where appropriate, and always with JFK’s vigor and enthusiasm.)
“Let the word go forth from this time and place to friend and foe alike that the torch has been passed to a new generation of Americans, born in this century, tempered by war, disciplined by a hard and bitter peace, proud of our ancient heritage and unwilling to witness or permit the slow undoing of those human rights to which this nation has always been committed….”
Male Actor One
“Let every nation know, whether it wishes us well or ill, that we will pay any price, bear any burden, meet any hardship, support any friend, oppose any foe to assure survival and the success of liberty."
Male Actor Three
“And so, my fellow Americans: ask not what your country can do for you--ask what you can do for your country. My fellow citizens of the world: ask not what America will do for you, but what together we can do for the freedom of man...”
Passages From Part Three: Atomic Fear and Trembling
Male Leader of Chorus
…Old Ike, as he was sometimes called,
Warned us in his farewell speech
About the internal threat of
What he labeled
A growing “Military Complex.”
(Projected photo of Dwight Eisenhower, 34th President of the United States.)
Male Actor Two
He said, “In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist. We must never let the weight of this combination endanger our liberties or democratic processes...."
Female Actor Two
In hindsight,
The “Complex” that Ike courageously identified
Was much more ...
It was an evil body of corrupt men who feared Kennedy
Conspiring together in secret.
They sought absolute power,
No matter the cost to our nation and its citizens.
Male Leader of Chorus
In symbolic and metaphoric language,
It was like Job’s LEVITHAN --
An enormous and powerful Beast of prey
That rose from the foulest, most polluted waters of Chaos –
A monster of truly Biblical dimensions.
Female Leader of Chorus
But this modern evil ravenous Beast
Had animators and agents
Who seditiously conspired,
Plotted, schemed, and prepared to terminate…
(At this point the audience hears a sound effect of five distinct gun shots,
the last two very close together.
Male Leader of Chorus
This Every Man Jack, this mere President –
This mortal man Kennedy –
Who blocked their way to Power and Control....
Passages From Part Four: A Hard Reign
Male Leader of Chorus
Somewhere in the gloom
On that cold November night,
A small lamp was switched on.
Female Actor Three:
Outside, the darkness was as thick and crimson dark
As Christ’s crucified blood,
And the season’s last dead leaves
Quivered in the night wind.
In another room, the screen flickered, glowed,
And the images, the voices, the questions
Were spun into a primal, wordless fear…
(AI generated image of raven in snow projected on big flat screen.)
Song: “The End of November, Nineteen Sixty-three”
Male Vocalist
(Original copyrighted lyrics and melody.)
Darkness falls as the sun goes down,
Dead trees cling to the icy ground,
The black raven bird makes no sound,
The gyre is turning, it’s almost wound.
It’s the end of November, in the year…
Nineteen…sixty-three…
Male Actor Two
(He moves forward a step as the Chorus Leaders step back into line. He portrays fictional character Charlie Blankenship, Mayor of Anderson Springs. He wears a ‘50s style fedora, the kind many men of the time wore but that Kennedy avoided. The Mayor is the first of several people from the town who tell their stories of how Kennedy's murder impacted their lives.)
Greetings friends and neighbors. I’m Charlie Blankenship. Back in those sad days I was Mayor of Anderson Springs, a small middle American town in Hardeman county. Kennedy never came down our Main Street, never stopped in Mr. Midgett’s grocery store on the Square, never made a speech at our local Pythian College, or browsed through Hank Garvey’s Five and Dime store. He never, so far as we can tell, kissed a girl up on Reservoir Hill, or ate a hamburger in Irene’s Pine Tree Cafe.
(He removes his hat.) But just as America needed the older Truman and Eisenhower to bring stability to the post-war years, we needed Kennedy to set us on a path to a bright future. We were provincial and innocent in Anderson Springs, but we weren’t ignorant....His eyes saw the hope in things. Looking at him, at his face, we saw America there, we saw the “by-God we can do it pride,” the cocky “let’s get this done” attitude, and we felt a miracle of confidence that we ourselves could do something to make our country better. We were devastated on November 22, 1963, when we heard that he’d been shot and killed in that motorcade in Dallas. Everybody in town remembered what they were doing on that terrible day when we first heard the news. (He steps back in line.)....
Passages From Part Five: Bad Moon Rising
Male and Female Leaders of Chorus
The Music that followed the blood-soaked assassination
Pounded out psychotic, hypnotic rhythms
And released long suppressed,
Perverse,
Impulsive desires.
Female Leader of Chorus
A preacher or a priest or a rabbi’s nightmare,
The music shredded and destroyed
Old cultural and Judeo-Christian restraints....
Female Leader of Chorus
Dylan, the Survivor,
Turned on his amp,
Rolled the Stone
Over the door to the Newport Tomb of Folk --
And threw off Seeger’s Activist Marxist yoke.
Male Actor Three
The Lizard King Jim M
Had opened the Doors to a strange Kingdom,
And in Miami shut them to just a crack --
But in Paris forgot to come back
When he joined Jimi and Janis for some Smack
In the Twenty-seven Club Insomniac Shack.
(Photo of Janis Joplin.)
Female Leader of Chorus
After wild woman Janis Joplin lost Bobby McGee
On the highway somewhere in California,
She took the debauched Midnight Train to Yuma
And before she got off, shrieked such a cry of pain,
A piece of her heart burst into flames....
Passages From end of Epilogue and end of play: The Myth Makers
Male Leader of Chorus
He was cut down in his youthful prime—
But his spirit is a light in the darkness…
And the images of him that remain
Keep him forever young in our Memory,
In our History,
And in our National Story.
Male Actor One
(The Actors and Leaders stop holding hands and Actor One steps forward as Herald.)
Hear ye! Hear ye! Remember his words again:
Male Leader of Chorus
“United, there is little we cannot do in a host of cooperative ventures. Divided, there is little we can do – for we dare not meet a powerful challenge at odds and split asunder....”
Male Leader of Chorus
(He opens his arms wide in a invitation and speaks with energy and passion)
“Let us not seek the Republican answer or the Democratic answer, but the right answer.
“Let us not seek to fix blame for the past.
“Let us accept our own responsibility for the future.”
Female Leader of Chorus
(She too opens her arms)
“Ask not what your country can do for you – Ask what you can do for your country?”
Together, what can we do for our country? And “together, what can we do for the freedom of man?”
Both Leaders of the Chorus and All Actors
(Pleading, with emotion)
Together, what can we do for our country?
And “together, what can we do for the freedom of man?”
(Music begins immediately for the final, shorter rendition of “The Golden Cup,”
Song: “The Golden Cup”
Female Vocalist
You dreamed new dreams that made the gray world glow,
You told us we could reach the silver moon,
That Camelot was meant to be our earthly home,
But the golden cup was shattered that black day.
(Song ends. Lights slowly fade out. The image of JFK on the large screen is the last to fade.)
End of Play