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Pastor wonders: What the h—?
Celebrities to stage Hell House for grins
Hell House is going Hollywood – with a twist.
The incendiary show, which sent the Denver area into an uproar with its graphic depiction of hell and the sinners who go there, opens Aug. 28 in Los Angeles.
It features a large cast of celebrities, including comedians Bill Maher as Satan and Andy Richter as Jesus, plus Julia Sweeney, Richard Belzer and more.
So why has a professional production, mounted at the Steve Allen Theater on Hollywood Boulevard, put fire in the eye of Hell House’s creator, the Rev. Keenan Roberts?
Because the show will use Roberts’ script and special effects “to lampoon (Christian) fundamentalist beliefs about hell,” admitted producer Maggie Rowe, who bought a $200 Hell House kit from Roberts.
“It will be a parody of itself,” she said in an interview Monday. “It will be very funny. We’re having a hoot.”
Rowe represents the Center for Inquiry-West, a group whose mission is “to promote and defend reason, science and freedom of inquiry in all areas of human endeavor.”
Roberts’ warnings that abortion, homosexuality, drugs and teen sex lead to hell get a new twist on the Hollywood production’s Web site, www.cfiwest.org:
“Feast your eyes on a grody abortion!” the site trumpets. “Find out why it’s wrong to be gay!” “Descend into the pits o’ Hell!”
The production will run Saturdays through Halloween.
Roberts feels stung but sees opportunity: “People have been trying to damage this message since they crucified the founder of the movement,” he said. “It’s exciting. Hell House is going to another stage of exposure.”
This year, Rowe contacted Roberts to buy a kit for her youth group. (The production company is named “The Youth Group.”) Keenan has sold more than 550 kits since the first Hell House began in 1994, drawing thousands of people annually to the Arvada church where he was youth minister.
His kit features more than 200 pages of stagecraft and script showing how to mount smoke-filled vignettes depicting Satan luring teenagers to hell by tempting them with sinful behaviors.
“Maggie Rowe misrepresented herself to me,” said Roberts, now pastor of Destiny Church in Broomfield. “She described what sounded like a ministry to children.”
Rowe acknowledges stretching the truth. To make up, she promised Roberts a free trip to Hollywood for opening night.
But some cast members are so offended that they don’t want to host him, she said.
Roberts said he’ll go on his own dime.
Rowe is nervous that the disturbing message, played for laughs, might fall flat. Then the script would be changed, she said.
Roberts, who has no copyright control over the kits, said he’s not worried: “Whatever their agenda is, I know they cannot damage the power of the Gospel.”
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