What a crazy past few months it's been. Once getting all the enjoyable legalities of starting a company out of the way, we had to decide on a show. EYE OF GOD is a script that has lived with us for some time and yet we never seemed to have the home for it. We looked at it when were producing with The Dirigo Group and with Alchemy, but the timing was never right. When searching for what show to open our inaugural season with we immediately knew it was time.
We quickly called Lisa Devine to direct it. Lisa has quite a history with EYE OF GOD and we knew if we were going to do it, she had to direct it. Lisa worked with Tim Blake Nelson while directing Christa in the first full production of EYE OF GOD at University of Oklahoma a number of years ago. Lisa then direct EYE OF GOD in Chicago, which had a successful six month run and picked up THREE Jeff Citation Nominations (including Best Director) and ONE Jeff Citation Award. Lisa was on board. She flew to New York for the reading and discussions began.
We finalized casting about a month ago, and our creative team was finally assembled.
And we were inspired.
I don’t know if there’s ever been more of a need for us, as a community, to discuss faith. We seem to be surrounded by an atmosphere of religious violence. Sunday, May 31st, in Wichita, Kansas, while on his way to church, Dr. George Tiller, an abortion provider, was assassinated by a man driven by religious fervor. Tiller’s murderer, Scott Roeder would later say that, "the entire motive was the defense of the unborn." He’s receiving fan mail for his crime, and the abortion clinic is now permanently closed. Right wing commentator, Anne Coulter told Fox Network's Bill O'Reilly, "I don't really like to think of it as a murder. It was terminating Tiller in the 203rd trimester."
According to the National Abortion Federation (NAF), in Canada and the U.S. combined, there have been eight murders of abortion providers since 1997, seventeen attempted murders, 41 clinic bombings and 175 clinics torched by arsonists, 1400 acts of clinic vandalism, 179 assaults against clinic staff and clients and 763 clinic blockades.
And just a couple of weeks ago, according to The New York Times, in Louisville, Kentucky, Pastor Ken Pagano, told his New Bethel Church congregation in his sermon titled, “God, Guns, Gospel and Geometry” to wear or carry their firearms into the sanctuary to “celebrate our rights as Americans!”
As a Western society we tend to look to the East and scrutinize religious fanaticism, yet we won’t look at our own under the same lens. With EYE OF GOD we plan to do that.
More to come.
