[Working title - the original document has no title of its own. See docs/owner-queries.md A1.]
Regarding your question about drama a teaching tool in the church : Yes, I think there is a place for that. Drama is a very flexible as well as powerful medium and God used it many times in the Bible to teach a lesson (eg, the burning bush, the antics of Jeremiah, etc). But as you say, we need to keep clear what the end purpose is and should not confuse teaching with other forms of drama. I was going to say "not confuse teaching with theatre", but then remembered the miracle plays of mediaeval times, which had a strong teaching component, because the peasants could not read or write, so drama (and the icons of the church, such as stained glass windows) were the principal form of instruction in the faith. But in those days, secular theatre such as we know it did not exist - drama was found only in a church context. But over time, it became very corrupt and fell out of favour, and the church has struggled ever since to accept it. (There is a brilliant essay on this written by an American women - a university professor - which is linked from the Dramatix site.) In many ways I would love to see the miracle plays revived (of course, the people of Oberammegau would say they never died), and in this I was hugely inspired by the movie "Rosencrantz and Gildenstern are Dead" (Tom Stoppard, who also wrote the screenplay for Shakespeare in Love). If you haven't seen the movie, get a copy of the video. It's brilliant - far better on film than the play itself reads. Incidentally, while I think of it, you can't do better in the learning department than borrowing play scripts from your local library and reading them. They are generally surprisingly good reading, and usually have the benefit of being consumable in one sitting. If you want a good one to start with, hunt out "The Lady's not for Burning" by Christopher Fry. After that try "A Man for All Seasons". (Shakespeare is not the only playwright with good scripts, and it's good to ease yourself in through something a bit more accessible.) "The Bear" by Chekhov is a nice lightweight classic comedy, in one act (you'll read it in 15 minutes). And a good translation of Moliere's "The Bourgeois Gentleman" is fun. Not to mention George Bernard Shaw and Oscar Wilde. (You can skip Shaw's introductions though - he preaches a right old sermon on how to change the world for umpteen pages, and it usually has little to do with the plot.)
Back to the original thesis. I would love Christian drama to engage the issues that are exercising the ordinary man in the street. For that, we have to start seeing the world through the ordinary person's eyes - not through the eyes we would like them to have, but as they really are. We need to write about what gets under their skin, which generally has very little to do with the drama agenda in the church.
The prime rule of communications is to start where your audience is. You have to identify with them, or to put it another way, present them with scenes in which they can see themselves. You may in fact not do any more than that. Just hold a mirror up to them. Give them characters and plots to identify with.
If they don't feel "that's me!", you won't take them any further. You are just hitting them over the head with a hammer. People are generally not stupid - they can think, and if you move them just a little way along, they'll think about it. If you try and take them too far too quickly, they'll sense very quickly you are trying to preach to them, and they'll clam up.
I would even suggest that you don't think of drama in terms of "evangelisation" at all. At best it is "pre-evangelisation" - in other words, creating a climate for other things to happen. I was given a good lesson about this many years ago when I was a member of music group which visited one of our local prisons regularly to help lead their Sunday church service. (Some of the inmates were Christians, but the majority not.) They also had a mid-week Bible study, which we went to on occasion. Now I come from a fairly middle class background, and one Bible study I shared with the guys how I found it hard to know quite how to relate to them. I'll never forget the reply from one prisoner: "Did you come to try and convert us, or did you come to be a friend?" I want my scripts to be "friends".