such rich material, such serious issues, so well done. Seminars just peter out - in a class like this the class gives itself to itself at the end, with all the powers of theater! You could do a lot worse than read just the scenes they had picked to see the value of a course on religion and theater! (And these were largely plays we didn't read!)I took a few pictures; here are some. (You know that I usually don't post pictures of people I care about. It's not that I don't care about these students - I find that I care very deeply, and mourn the end of our adventures together. But I'm not telling you their names.)
However I will tell you the plays from which these scenes are taken: Tony Kushner's "Angels in America" (Joe and Harper at right; Prior and the angel below); Archibald MacLeish's "J. B." (J. B. in anguish as Mr. Zuss/God and Nickels/Satan play chess); Jean Paul Sartre's "No Exit" (they realize
they are each other's torturers in hell); José Rivera's "Marisol" (Marisol overwhelmed as an angel tells of the rebellion she is leading); and Steven Adly Guirgis' "The Last Days of Judas Iscariot" (Satan is called to testify in the trial of Judas). I don't have pics of all the scenes, including two more from Guirgis and one from "Inherit the Wind" (where I made a brief appearance as a bigoted judge with three lines).
Do notice, please, how creative the students were, staging their scenes without lighting, without props, without, indeed, a theater! (We do a kind 
of "poor theater" here, faute de mieux!) Students made use of every part of the large hall where the class met. Particularly ingenious it 
was to make use of the elevator - as Prior in "Angels in America" flees the angel brandishing the book of death) she runs down the aisle to the elevator, frantically pressing the button, and somehow they manage to keep the scene going until the elevator door opens! 
A few interesting points in common across the scenes (which tells you something about the way religious themes or images lend themselves to theater, or are borrowed by it): lots of angels, several scenes in hell (or purgatory), and the inescapability of the problem of evil. So much more to learn! Hope they let us do this again, and again!!
