• 
  (Photo: RSC/Lucy Barriball)
  (Left to Right) Rebecca Brewer, Mark Quartley, and Struan Leslie rehearsing for "Song of Songs", a play that according to director Leslie will be erotic and contain no religious elements.

To celebrate Easter Sunday, a production company in Michigan will be performing a medley of popular musical pieces from religiously-themed productions.

The Fourth Wall, an arts and entertainment venue in Jackson, will be performing "The Bible According to Broadway" on Friday and Saturday evening.

The production will include talented locals from the Jackson, Michigan area. Songs performed by the extensive cast will include opuses from "Godspell," "Joseph and The Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat," "Fiddler On The Roof," and "Jesus Christ Superstar."

In an interview with local media, Fourth Wall owner Gary Minix explained that the timing for "The Bible According to Broadway" was intentional.

"We really wanted to do something for Easter," said Minix to Zeke Jennings of Mlive Media Group. "It's going to be a real cabaret-like show…It should be a lot of fun."

Minix credited his wife, Marjy, also an experienced performer, with coming up with the idea of compiling songs for a production to commemorate Easter.

Follow us

This is not the first time Minix has been involved in a mainstream religious production. A couple years ago Minix was involved in a production of "Jesus Christ Superstar."

"I absolutely adored doing 'Godspell' at the Bon Ton Room a few years ago," said Minix, referring to a music venue that is also located in Jackson.

While "The Bible According to Broadway" will likely lack controversy over its performance, other biblically-themed play performances during this Lenten season were not so tame.

In late February, the Royal Shakespeare Company announced that it would perform a "movement piece" inspired by the Song of Solomon. Despite taking many of the lines directly from the Bible, director Struan Leslie vowed to make it secular and erotic.

"…[A]nyone who comes to it (the play) expecting a 'biblical epic' is going to be disappointed, although it will have that energy to it as far as the text goes. But it's not going to be a religious piece at all," said Leslie in an interview with the U.K. publication The Telegraph.

"One of the other things we're interested in doing is escaping the Judeo-Christian tradition of it and opening it up to other possibilities."

The Fourth Wall did not return request for comments by press time.