Story of ‘Samson’ Comes to Sight and Sound Theatres (Interview)
Sight & Sound Theatres rarely do anything small. So no surprise that its new show, “Samson,” is on an epic scale.
“This is our 27th original production,” Josh Enck, president and chief creative officer of Sight & Sound, told the crowd of almost 2,000. “And this is our 40th year. We started in 1976 and we are (now) the largest faith based theater in the world.”
Sight & Sound tells Bible stories. In the past, they’ve tackled the stories of Moses, Jonah, Noah, Daniel, Joseph and Ruth. Shows generally run a year and the tourism here gets a boost every spring when Sight & Sound opens a new show.
“It’s the biggest tourist attraction in the county, with an average of 800,000 people visiting the theater each year according to Sight & Sound.”
Plenty of souvenirs will be sold. The gift shop is filled with all things “Samson,” from magnets to T-shirts to mugs to water bottles.
How highly anticipated has this new show been?
When the “Samson” title was announced almost a year ago, more than 50,000 tickets were sold within 24 hours. A number of “Samson” shows are already sold out.
So how epic is “Samson”?
Well, the stage is so huge it requires three stage managers (most shows only use one).
The cast numbers 54 actors, 34 live animals are featured and more than 7,000 yards of material was used for the costumes. Bringing it all together has taken more than three years.
“Jeff Bender, the writer, producer and director of the show noted just how many people were involved when he joked, “What you are about to see here has so many finger prints on it, a CSI agent couldn’t figure out who’s responsible for it.””
And the tweaking continued almost to the end. “We had a pretty long night this week,” said Kerry Ashton, the production stage manager, who oversees the cast and the stage managers. “Mostly we were (tweaking) the lighting, staging and set changes in order to draw focus (on the right things).”
“Considering just how huge everything is, the team did a masterful job of guiding the audience where they wanted them to look. And the show glided along beautifully on opening night.”
The show is filled with a gentle humor, and a comforting Christian message that we all make mistakes in our lives, but if we turn to him, God will love us. It is a gentler message than shows in the past, which sometimes contained some fire and brimstone. There are solid performances by Michael Niederer as Samson, Johnny Russell as the nasty Philistine, Commander Gaza and Tricia Bridgeman as Samson’s mother.
“We have a lot of additional aspects with special effects, with stage combat, with stunt falls that are all a part of the show,” “Samson” actor Michael Niederer said, “so, it’s been amazing to bring it together and finally have it in front of an audience and they really seem to be eating it up.”