Few things are more contentious in modern American society than faith: specifically, conservative Christianity and the way it has shaped our lives and our politics. But how did we get to where we are today? How have people in other times and places responded to issues like those we face today? And what does the Bible actually say?
Enter The Foundation Project.
Over each of the next four years, The Foundation Project will produce
No matter your beliefs or background, our hope is that you will find these productions to be educational, revealing, and thought-provoking.
The Foundation Project will launch on March 22, 2025 at St. John's Episcopal Church in Lancaster, Pennsylvania with Benjamin Wesley's hour-long one-man show (or, if you will, a "vanity of vanities, all is vanity project")...
The ancient words of the anonymous author often referred to as Qoholet ("the Teacher") will leave you saying, "Wait, that's in the Bible?", as Qoholet embarks on a quest to find the meaning of life in a world where nothing, it seems, is new under the sun.
This production will use the CEB translation by arrangement with Abingdon Press.
Then, on July 18, 2025, The Foundation Project will present a staged reading of
by Peter Goodchild.
Exactly 100 years ago, John Scopes went on trial in Dayton, Tennessee for teaching the theory of evolution in a public school classroom. A media circus erupted when three-time presidential nominee William Jennings Bryan, who had not practiced law in decades, volunteered his services as the prosecuting attorney. To the shock of everyone present, defense attorney Clarence Darrow called Bryan himself up to the witness stand on the last day of the trial...to testify as an expert witness on the Bible. The resulting debacle has often been viewed as a setback for the nascent American Christian fundamentalist movement that lasted nearly half-a-century. Famously dramatized (and fictionalized) in Inherit the Wind, Peter Goodchild's The Great Tennessee Monkey Trial does something different: it uses the actual trial transcripts to tell the story as a radio play.
What happens when a pastor stops believing in Hell?
On August 14, 2025, The Foundation Project presents its first full production for one night only, the acclaimed 2015 off-Broadway play The Christians by Lucas Hnath.
Loosely structured on the classic Greek drama Antigone, Hnath does not offer any easy answers. Instead, the play delves into the painful interpersonal dynamics when a church, and perhaps a marriage, breaks down in the wake of a controversial sermon.
Other future shows: