This Beautiful City

Written by Steven Cosson and Jim Lewis, with music and lyrics by Michael Friedman, This Beautiful City explores the growth of the evangelical Christian movement. It is docu-drama in nature, drawn principally from interviews The Civilians have conducted with people involved with or affected by the mega-church movement in Colorado Springs.

A play with music, This Beautiful City was created from interviews by Emily Ackerman, Marsha Stephanie Blake, Brad Herberlee, Stephen Plunkett, Alison Weller and the authors with actual persons over the course of 10 weeks in Colorado Springs. Every leading church in the area participated in the project, as did numerous civic organizations, progressive activists, and individuals from all walks of life.

The Vineyard Theatre will welcome one of the real-life subjects depicted in its production of This Beautiful City, Michael “Mikey” Weinstein — well-known and recently profiled in the New York Times as founder of the Military Religious Freedom Foundation — at a post-performance Q&A about the play and its subject matter, the mega-church movement in Colorado Springs, following the Sunday, March 15 matinee performance (3:00 p.m.)