Interview: Damon Cardasis on the Personal Inspiration for New York Theatre Workshop's Saturday Church

Damon Cardasis found inspiration in an unlikely source: the pews of St. Luke in the Fields Church in the West Village. Working with at-risk LGBTQ+ youth who flocked to the church’s Art and Affirmation program on Saturday evenings, Cardasis eventually turned his experiences into the film Saturday Church, following a queer teenager who discovers camaraderie, comfort, and heels in the very same pews.

Saturday Church was Cardasis’s first film (2017) and it became his calling card. Now, he’s part of an illustrious creative team — which also includes the singer-songwriter Sia, the DJ Honey Dijon, and Fat Ham playwright James Ijames — turning it into a musical.

Saturday Church has recently thrown open its doors at New York Theatre Workshop, and Cardasis is ready to discuss this new version of his cinematic baby.

This conversation has been condensed and edited for clarity.

Saturday Church is a very personal story for you.
So, my mother is an Episcopal priest. She’s retired now, but she used to have a church in the Bronx. Even though I don’t really go to church anymore, my version of Christianity was always a loving God, not the fire and brimstone type. It was about the love of it all. And I’m gay, and my mother has always been massively supportive and progressive.

She told me about a friend of hers who runs St. Luke in the Fields, which is that church on Hudson and Christopher, and how that church has a program for the at-risk LGBTQ youth who go to the Christopher Street Pier, and then come to the church and get social services and free clothing and fed. It’s this wonderful safe space. I thought that was a fascinating concept, that a church was actively trying to help the community that’s targeted by other aspects of the same religion.

There was a big schism happening in the Episcopal church at this point. Some factions were ok with women priests and doing gay marriages, and other factions were doubling down on the hatred and divisiveness. So I just started volunteering and meeting the kids. So many of the stories were about hardship or trauma or being thrown out and having to resort to sex work to survive. But they were the most beautiful people you’ve ever met, who would go from telling these stories of survival to turning on a boom box and Voguing.

That juxtaposition–We just had a horrific conversation about what you’ve gone through, and then you turn on the music and suddenly, you’re Beyoncé–that was the idea of the film.

It was your first real film, right?
It was my first time directing a film, and then to do a musical on top of it was slightly insane, but we got through it. It was important for me that the casting was authentic. There are kids in the movie that had gone to the Saturday Church program. Indya Moore had never acted at that point, so they were a discovery. Michaela Jaé Rodriguez had played Angel in Rent at New World Stages but had never done a film. Alexia Garcia, who played Heaven, had never acted, ever.

It was a small film that was received well, and I woke up one day to a Tweet from Sia which said, “Everyone go see Saturday Church.” And I was like “I don’t know why someone would waste their time making a fake account,” but apparently, she saw it because she read the reviews, and then it kind of went from there.

Was a stage musical version always a goal?
Everybody would always ask that, and because I was a theater major, of course the stage was something that I wanted. But you’re not like “Oh, I’m going to make a movie and then I’m going to turn it into a musical.” You’re secretly thinking that, but it was crazy enough to think about even making a movie. My now-agent ended up being at a Q&A and asked me who I’d want to do the music, and I was like, “If we’re doing this dream game, I know Sia saw it.” And he was like “I know her producer, I’ll ask.” And I was like “Good luck,” and he was like “She’ll do it.”

I mean, that sounds so insane. It sounds like such an obnoxious story. If I was reading this, I’d be like “Fuck you!” But it’s true. It is crazy, but I guess it’s also a testament to dreaming big and not pre-emptively cutting yourself short. Like, if people say no, I’ll be in the same place as if I never even tried, so I might as well try.

So what is Sia like as a collaborator?
Incredible. She went through her massive catalog of music. Most of the music in the show people have never heard before. There are a few of her songs that I just wanted because they worked well with the storytelling, but it’s not the bangers like “Titanium.” It was a whole dialogue of “These are the songs I’ve curated that I think could work well based on the drafts,” and then conversations about transforming the music and lyrics so that they fit a musical. And then we’re working with Honey Dijon and Luke Solomon and Jason Michael Webb, who are the best.

I feel like you and James Ijames, your co-writer on the book, have a similar tone and sensibility.
We do. My background is in sketch comedy writing. The Saturday Church movie is obviously somber and quiet, but that was the first time I wanted to write something dramatic, because I love comedy so much. When I read Fat Ham, within the first five pages, I was laughing out loud. We look at things very much the same way and have a similar sense of timing. I love collaborative writing, especially when it comes to comedy. Maybe that’s my sketch background; you want to ping-pong jokes back and forth. He’s a good time, especially to get drinks with. Him and Whitney White and I, it gets to be a lot. Cackling, screaming, laughing.

This is your brainchild, but you’re also handing it over to others while still being involved. How do you balance staying true to the original while allowing it to evolve in new directions?
It’s been easy. I’m not the type of writer who silos himself off in the room and slips pages under the door. I obviously have a responsibility to protect what the show is about, but nobody has ever come with an idea that I thought [didn’t work]. There are characters that are in the movie that are not in the show, there are new characters, one of whom takes the show in a completely different direction than the movie, but it’s always about what’s best for the piece. And I’m working with the top minds in the business, so I would be a fool not to listen to them out of ego.