HOLY FOOL AND SU­PER­STAR: MU­SI­CAL THEA­T­RE AS CHURCH SER­VICE?

A theatre performance and a church service are not without their similarities: people assemble in a ritualistic setting looking for redemption and catharsis. And redemptive characters rarely make their entrance as guilelessly as Parsifal and Jesus Christ in the respective works by Richard Wagner and Andrew Lloyd Webber. Some questions, then: What elements do religious and artistic experiences have in common? How religious is theatre and how theatre-like religion? How do theatre and religion go about slaking people’s spiritual thirst? Academics and practitioners take the audience on a deep dive into this wide subject.