History
Founded in 1992, Fellowship for the Performing Arts (FPA) has presented professional theatrical productions in New York City, The Shakespeare Theatre in D. C., the Dallas Theatre Center, Playwrights Theatre of New Jersey, at the Edinburgh Theatre Fringe Festival, the Pegasus Theatre in Chicago, Stratford Festival Theatre in Stratford, Ontario, Grace Theatre in Houston, and national tours in dozens of colleges and performing arts venues across the nation.
Mission Statement
To produce theatre from a Christian worldview that is engaging to a diverse audience.
See Current Newsletter (PDF)
Fellowship Circle Fall 2009
Our Vision
At the root of understanding Christianity is the admission that the world is not what it ought to be, and at the heart of being a Christian is the confession that, “I am part of the problem.” Many of us are motivated to exert enormous energy to realize perceived ultimate values – usually some form of power, profit or pleasure – that override humility, virtue and sacrifice. The result is often conflict and disintegration. Our vision is to select stories from the reservoir of great literature that explore how and why such choices are made, and to produce those stories in a theatrical manner that engages a diverse audience.
Recent Press
“Mounted by the New Jersey-based Fellowship for the Performing Arts, which creates theater from a Christian worldview…audience members interested in spiritual reflection will certainly find food for thought -- and mortification -- in this dramatization. But the fiendish reality the production conjures is colorful enough to appeal to theatergoers of any, or no, religious persuasion.”
Washington Post
“Fellowship for the Performing Arts, an organization that supports “the integration of faith and the arts,” is currently presenting a stage version of C.S. Lewis’s “The Screwtape Letters”…It is — if I may say so — one h-ll of a good show. The New York press has mostly ignored it, though, and I can’t think why (well, I can, but there’s no point in beating that dead horse).”
The Wall Street Journal
“The New Jersey-based Fellowship of the Performing Arts — a group devoted to producing “theater from a Christian worldview that is engaging to a diverse audience,” as their mission statement goes — has hit the bull’s-eye, making a Screwtape for the stage that’s nearly as incisive and funny as it is on the page, and one that should appeal to the aesthetically-discerning atheist as well as to a wide swath of religious folks.”
DCist.com
“Perhaps the most overwhelmingly alienating part of The Screwtape Letters for people in the age group of my companion and myself—ironic post-college twentysomethings—is the play's strong identification with Christianity. Among many of my peers, Christianity is something for bible-thumpers and right-wing conservatives—something that we are predisposed to mock rather than venerate. In the sketch comedy world, where I work frequently, sketches featuring Jesus Christ are so common they are cliché. It is therefore doubly important that ironic post-college twentysomethings like myself go and see The Screwtape Letters. What is presented is an intelligent, accessible, bitingly satirical and funny exploration of profound issues of right and wrong. This is not bible-thumping, this is serious meditation on issues having to do with the human experience—and it is important reminder of what Christianity can be.”
NYTheatre.com
Board of Directors
Paul Bradshaw, Senior Counsel, Sunesys, Newtown, PA
Ronald P. Joelson, (Board Chair), Managing Director, J.P. Morgan Chase, Far Hills, NJ
Katherine Leary, Director, Center for Faith & Work, Redeemer Presbyterian Church, New York City
Katie Maddox, Anesthesiologist (Retired), Gray, GA
Max McLean, President, Fellowship for the Performing Arts, Morristown, NJ
Anne Vanberg Waldie, President, Vanberg Foundation, Dallas, TX
FPA Staff
Max McLean – President & Executive Producer
Jeffrey Fiske – Associate Producer
Barbara Kennedy – Marketing Director
Benjamin Geist – Creative Services Director
Maria Muzyka – Bookkeeper/Controller
Tricia Watts – Database Manager
Brent Matz – Audio Engineer
Make A Donation
FPA is a non profit, tax exempt arts organization under IRS code 501(c) 3. Gifts to FPA are tax deductible to the full extent of the law. To make a donation in support of our work click here .
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