Church and stage

HOUSTON THEATERS HAVING AWKWARD COURTSHIP WITH RELIGION

Theaters having an awkward courtship with religion.

You could hear the air leave the room. So sudden was the silence, so still was the theater that it had that eerie feeling one gets when an air conditioner turns off. Laughter gave way to taut backs. Smiles vaporized and were replaced with cold suspense. And of all the culprits it could have been in the universe, it had to be Him. During last month’s opening night of “An Act of God,” David Javerbaum’s satire on you-know-who playing at the Alley Theatre through April 16, Todd Waite, in the titular role, cracked jokes about Bill Cosby, the Holocaust and, well, all that nasty business that went down in the Bible. Yet it was a comment about God’s stance on homosexuality that punctured the evening’s levity. FAITH, PAGE G12

“It’s always a challenge.” A.D. Players managing director Ric Hodgin on finding plays that embody the Christian spirit “The kind of people who see theater starring a gay man, these are not typically the same people who come from the religious world.” Playwright David Javerbaum, on his play “An Act of God”