CHURCH OR THEATER? WHICH?
The Christian Union of May 28 says: “The affiliation between the church and the theater is proceeding, we should think, as rapidly as the most ardent advocate of an alliance between them could reasonably desire.” It then goes on to state that “Pinafore” was performed in New York by a company made up almost entirely of members from the church choirs of Philadelphia, and the same in Boston by concert singers, most of them leading singers in the church. Now, “As You Like It” is announced at Wallack’s theater, by a company including “prominent singers from two or three of our prominent churches.” And lastly, the New England Theater Reform Association, endorsed and sanctioned by several clergymen, lends its auspices for a series of dramatic performances. And yet people do not like to have us say that such churches are fallen.