Word: theater
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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When 150 young people assembled for church services in a movie theater outside Chicago 14 years ago, the congregation was so cash poor that some of the members had to sell tomatoes door to door to pay for the hall. Today the Willow Creek Community Church in South Barrington, Ill., is the second largest Protestant congregation in America. During weekend services nearly 12,000 people regularly cram into its $15 million, 4,650-seat auditorium and complex. At a time when the mainstream Protestant denominations are rapidly losing members, Willow Creek's popular success and stripped-down theology are challenging...
From a distance, the church looks like a huge granite amphitheater, a scaled-down version of Chicago's McCormick Place. The first half-hour of the weekend service is devoted to such attractions as Christian rock music, drama and multimedia slide shows. Parishioners sit in posh theater seats rather than pews. When pastor Bill Hybels, 37, finally appears on the stage wearing a natty business suit and button-down collar, his message sounds more entrepreneurial than churchy. Preaching from a Plexiglas lectern, he talks about "taking risks" to be Christians and the "user value" of doctrinal studies...
...Hybels' methods are so popular that they are being copied nationwide. Three times a year, 500 pastors converge on Willow Creek to study Hybels' methods. Already dozens of copycat congregations have begun popping up around the country. One of them, founded by pastor Jim Nicodem in a shopping mall theater in nearby St. Charles four years ago, has just launched a $2.5 million fund-raising drive for a new church complex dedicated to "presenting ageless truths in a contemporary fashion." There could be no better tribute to Hybels' vision -- or his marketing savvy...
...musical called The Straw Hat Revue opened at Manhattan's Ambassador Theater. The show, which cost $8,000 to put on Broadway, featured such future stars as Danny Kaye, Imogene Coca, Alfred Drake and a young dancer named Jerome Robbins. This week -- 50 years later and four blocks south, at the Imperial Theater -- Broadway welcomes another revue, Jerome Robbins' Broadway, with another cast of young hopefuls. But everything else about this show is bigger, riskier and very late '80s. For one thing, its co-sponsor is a Japanese liquor firm. For another, it carries an all-time-high ticket price...
Clearly, more is riding on this show than a mere $8 million. For Jerome Robbins' Broadway is a sacred remnant of the musical at its mid-century peak -- a fusion of wit, precision, melody and high spirits -- that an aging generation of theater lovers miss terribly and want back. "We are in an era of high school production numbers and arias set to a backbeat," says Jule Styne, who wrote songs for five Robbins musicals. "A lot of people will see this show and realize what they've missed." Co-producer Emanuel Azenberg must hope so too. "Shows that have...