Passion Play

by Sarah Ruhl

The Studio@620 and Eckerd College present Passion Play by Sarah Ruhl on Friday and Saturday November 18-19, 2011.

A village in northern England, ravaged by the plague, makes a pact with God to perform the Passion Play each year to honor the life of Christ. It is 1575, when Queen Elizabeth is banning all religious plays in order to eradicate Catholicism from the country. "Passion Play" explores the intersection of theatre, religion, and politics. In the play-within-a-play, the villagers take on the roles of holy religious figures, but in their private lives, they struggle to behave like saints and fall short of this goal in very human ways.

The cast features 13 Eckerd College students - six upper-level theatre majors and seven freshmen.