To Hell House and Back: Theatre as Evangelical Outreach

Date of Award

2009

Document Type

Thesis

Degree Name

Bachelors

Department

Humanities

First Advisor

Seales, Chad

Keywords

Brecht, Bertolt, Hell House, Evangelicalism

Area of Concentration

Theatre

Abstract

Advancing a tradition started by Jerry Falwell in 1972, in 1996 Pastor Keenan Roberts of New Destiny Christian Center in Colorado began selling Hell House Outreach Kits to interested church groups. Since then, thousands of Hell Houses—morality plays depicting sinful behavior in an appropriation of the haunted house format--have been staged all over the country, many using Pastor Keenan's script. I purchased the script, and in January of 2009 staged “Interactive Hell House Spectacular” on the campus of New College of Florida. I combined Pastor Keenan's material with elements of Brecht's alienation effect in order to create a different spectacle from the one which Pastor Keenan prescribes. In Hell House Spectacular, the audience was encouraged to critically assess the issues rather than react purely emotionally. In the written portion of my thesis, I discuss the origins and functions of Hell Houses as an evangelical activist tool. I also discuss what it means for Hell House to be a theatrically effective medium.

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