Testify: Real People and Religion

Testify: Real People and Religion is a performance project for Studio A.C.T.’s inaugural Theater of Testimony course. Class members conducted 50 interviews in June 2004 with people from across the religious spectrum: Catholics, Protestants, Jews, Muslims, Hindus, Southern Baptists, Jehovah’s Witnesses, Agnostics, and Atheists, to name a few. These interviews were transcribed verbatim by class members and shaped into the final script. Each interview adds a distinctive voice-be it humorous, cynical, or moving-to the complex issue of the role played by religion today. A 10-year old girl puzzles about the meaning of “kosher.” A former “rosary-rubbing altar boy” describes his transition to “fire-breathing, proselytizing, born-again atheist.” A Hindu woman celebrates her personal connection with God. These are the stories brought to the stage in Testify.