Frances, the central character in the play ‘Nothing Can Take You From the Hand of God,’ chose to leave her evangelical church as an adult. While multiple reasons contributed to her departure, a significant factor was the emotional pain caused by her parents’ inability to accept her sexuality.
Despite this, she confesses in a CNN interview promoting her memoir that the spiritual essence of her upbringing—particularly the music—remains with her, a connection she doesn’t wish to sever. ‘The singing,’ she explains, ‘I adored the singing. Today, I find solace in sound baths, which, in a way, feels like a form of worship. It’s similar, but… ‘
That poignant ‘but’ encapsulates a deep internal struggle for Frances. By the play’s conclusion, she finds herself humming the very ‘creepy-ass hymn’ she once described to the interviewer. Standing at the stage’s edge, she sings ‘The Lord bless you and keep you,’ a biblical benediction set to Peter Lutkin’s choral arrangement, a mix of fear and relief on her face. It’s a moment that resonates, perhaps even prompting audience members to join in silently. With a final ‘Amen,’ the stage fades to darkness.
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There’s an undeniable theatrical flair to religious services, just as there’s a quiet spirituality that often permeates the theater. Structurally, they share common ground: people gather, typically facing a shared focal point, absorbed in a collective experience. Many of today’s playwrights and performers discovered their passion for the stage in childhood, steeped in the traditions of church pews and choir robes. This season alone, productions like ‘Nothing Can Take You From the Hand of God,’ ‘Oh Happy Day!,’ ‘Saturday Church,’ ‘Flaming September,’ ‘Heaux Church,’ and ‘Oratorio for Living Things’ all delve into the profound emotional wellspring of church environments and sacred music.
For centuries, humanity has grappled with defining the sacred and the secular, often drawing rigid distinctions. Yet, for me and, I believe, for many of these theater artists, that boundary dissolves in moments of song, or within the hushed intensity of a theater, where a collective shiver can transcend the ordinary. It’s no surprise, then, that those who have navigated this complex terrain throughout their lives are now urging audiences to explore these very questions on stage.
Prior to the pandemic, plays exploring religious themes, especially Christianity, often took a direct approach. For instance, Lucas Hnath’s 2015 work, ‘The Christians,’ cleverly utilized the architectural parallels between theaters and churches to tell the story of a pastor’s crisis of faith regarding hell. In 2019, Will Arbery’s ‘Heroes of the Fourth Turning‘ delved into the supernatural, examining the tensions between fervent belief and political extremism. And Michael R. Jackson’s bold 2019 Off-Broadway musical, ‘A Strange Loop,’ adopted the structure of a gospel play to narrate the experience of a gay man in his twenties facing rejection from his religious family, even playfully venturing into the irreverent with songs like ‘Precious Little Dream/AIDS Is God’s Punishment.’
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This autumn, a new wave of plays centered on church themes has emerged, introducing a unique musical dimension. As highlighted in Jen Tullock’s compelling solo work, ‘Nobody Can Take You From the Hand of God’ (co-written with Frank Winters, playing at Playwrights Horizons until Nov. 16), the message is clear: while you might leave the church, its powerful music never truly leaves you.
These sentiments are mirrored in two other notable downtown productions. Much like ‘A Strange Loop,’ both narratives explore the inner turmoil of young gay Black men torn between their devout families and their burgeoning queer identities.
Jordan E. Cooper’s ‘Oh Happy Day!‘, currently at the Public Theater, reimagines the biblical story of Noah’s Ark. Cooper stars as Keyshawn, burdened by God’s command to save his family from an impending flood, a task he fiercely resists, especially after his father disowned him for being gay. The production is rich with gospel music by Grammy-winner Donald Lawrence, performed by the Divines, drawing the audience into a celebratory atmosphere while simultaneously instilling Keyshawn with a sense of divine awe. The immersive experience ensures you’ll feel like you’ve stepped into a church service from the very first note.
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‘Saturday Church,’ which recently concluded its run at New York Theater Workshop, explores a similar theme. Its young protagonist, Ulysses, finds himself torn between his profound desire to sing in his church choir and the supportive community he discovers at LGBTQ+ youth gatherings on Saturday evenings. This adaptation of Damon Cardasis’s film (with a book by Cardasis and James Ijames), featuring music by Sia and Honey Dijon, powerfully asserts that any music can be sacred, if you choose it to be, infused with an undeniable gospel energy.
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While ‘Oh Happy Day!’ is rooted in Laurel, Mississippi, and ‘Saturday Church’ is distinctly a New York story, both productions deeply understand and celebrate Black church traditions. They encourage audience participation and showcase a vibrant theatricality. Intriguingly, neither protagonist is entirely willing to abandon the concept of God. ‘Oh Happy Day!’ confronts the enduring problem of evil, suggesting divine presence can be found in unexpected corners, while ‘Saturday Church’ offers a hopeful resolution: both the Saturday night queer gathering and the Sunday church service can coexist meaningfully in Ulysses’s world.
Meanwhile, in Louisville, Kentucky, Frances, despite her efforts, also finds herself unable to fully detach from her church, specifically the captivating choral music of her evangelical upbringing. Justin Vivian Bond shared a parallel narrative during their recent concert residency, ‘Flaming September,’ hosted by St. Ann’s Warehouse at St. Ann and the Holy Trinity Church in Brooklyn. Interspersed with Marianne Faithfull’s songs, Bond spoke fondly of their own joyful youth spent singing in church, celebrating the reclamation of sacred spaces for their unique musical expression. Similarly, at Ars Nova, ‘Heaux Church‘ (running through Nov. 21) sees former pastor’s kid Brandon Kyle Goodman guiding the ‘congregation’—the audience—in a vibrant celebration of sexuality and self-acceptance, featuring ‘storytelling, divine muse and all things heaux-ly.’ The influence of traditional church structures is unmistakable in these powerful new works.
These moments suggest a profound shift in how artists are engaging with faith. Emotions like anger and sorrow stemming from rejection and abandonment are palpable; it feels as if the very churches they cherished turned away from them, rather than the reverse. For many, theater has emerged as a sanctuary—a place of belonging, a community, and an experience that not only fills spiritual voids but also offers deep healing.
This quest for transcendence occasionally manifests in truly surprising ways. Composer Heather Christian, a recent MacArthur Foundation fellow and a resident artist at Signature Theater for 2025-26, grew up Catholic and served as a cantor well into her thirties. Her artistic creations, rooted in ancient Christian musical forms, are designed to forge ‘space to contemplate the sacred and spiritual in structurally complex works of musical theater.’ Though she identifies as neither a believer nor an atheist today, she has publicly stated that her work represents an ‘active, deep searching for divine guidance,’ born from a longing for the spiritual comfort she once found in church.
In 2024, Christian’s ‘Terce: A Practical Breviary‘—part of an ambitious eight-part series inspired by the Catholic liturgical hours—offered a fresh perspective on morning prayers, reframing them through the ‘lens of the divine feminine,’ as noted in the program. She explained in an interview that this project was born from ‘feeling alienated from a creator who did not understand how a woman moves socially through the world and the hardships that come with that.’
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Christian’s ‘Oratorio for Living Things‘ has made a triumphant return to the stage (at Signature Theater through Nov. 23), following its initial Off-Broadway run in 2022, a period when live performances were just beginning to re-emerge. Utilizing the traditional oratorio form—a large-scale musical work often based on sacred texts—she crafts a sweeping narrative that encompasses the entire universe, the vastness of time, the human experience, and our humble place within the cosmic tapestry.
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When I first experienced it in 2022, it was, quite simply, breathtaking, and it moved me to tears once again this autumn. I wasn’t alone in this profound reaction. Christian herself describes the ‘Oratorio’—which illuminates aspects of the universe’s profound mysteries through her evocative music—as a ‘holy vocation.’ I believe her peers in the theater community would wholeheartedly concur.