Sight & Sound ‘Christian Broadway’ shows will soon stream on faith-based platform

(RNS) — Live llamas. Laser lights. A giant arc. Angels hanging by wires.

For decades, the beloved Sight & Sound theaters in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, and Branson, Missouri, have welcomed nearly 2 million annual attendees to view their elaborate, live, large-scale Christian theater productions.

Now, those productions will be streamable.

Beginning on July 30, Wonder Project — a “values-driven” subscription service available on Amazon’s Prime Video in the U.S. — will be releasing one Sight & Sound production every two weeks throughout the fall. The titles include “Jesus,” “Ruth,” “Moses,” “Noah,” “Queen Esther,” “David,” “Samson,” “Daniel” and “Miracle of Christmas.”

It will be the largest collection of Sight & Sound titles available on a third-party streaming service. The shows will join “A Great Awakening,” one of Sight & Sound’s first feature films, which is already streaming on Wonder Project and has been a top performer on the platform. The addition comes as streaming platforms are offering more spiritual content than ever.

“What we have seen is a strong demand for this premium, faith and values-driven entertainment sector,” said Ani Haftvani, senior vice president of programming and content acquisitions at Wonder Project. “Instead of being confined to, for example, a holiday, a theatrical moment, or a live event, these stories are available whenever they’re ready to engage with them. They’re available on demand.”

A poster for the Sight & Sound Theatres Home option. (Courtesy image)

Sight & Sound was founded decades before streaming, in 1976, as a traveling multi-media show designed to spread the Christian gospel through story and song. Glenn Eshelman, who co-founded the company alongside his wife, Shirley, was a dairy farmer and a minister in an Anabaptist tradition. The company, however, is not affiliated with a particular Christian denomination.

Despite its simple origins, Sight & Sound later came to be known for its towering, three-story sets, vibrant costumes and extravagant Christian musical performances featuring original music and dozens of live animals. Most new productions take four years to create from start to finish, according to Toni Montgomery, director of marketing and communications, and they play out in 2,000-seat theaters 11 times a week on 300-foot wrap-around stages. The scale of the shows earned Sight & Sound the informal nickname “Christian Broadway.”

The Lancaster and Branson venues are destination stops for many Christian tourists, who visit from nearby states as part of a longer stay. Most shows are biblical adaptations that strive to remain true to the biblical text while occasionally taking creative license for dramatic purposes. Optional prayer is offered to audience members after every show.

“Our goal is always to bring the gospel of Jesus to the masses,” said Montgomery.

Sight & Sound’s partnership with Wonder Project isn’t the group’s first foray into pre-recorded offerings.

The company first began releasing recordings of its productions on DVD in 2005 and in 2017 began debuting shows in movie theaters. In 2020, when the COVID-19 pandemic led to the closure of both theaters, Sight & Sound released a pre-recorded version of its “Jesus” production over Easter weekend and drew nearly 3 million viewers. That success led the company to launch its own streaming platform, Sight & Sound TV, that same year. Since then, it has also released two feature films.

“Streaming has been very amazing for our brand and for our company,” said Montgomery. “We have two locations, and not everybody can make it to in-person theater. But this is a way we can reach so many more people with the gospel and right from their own homes.”

Though Sight & Sound’s titles are also available on its own streaming platform, the company hopes to widen its reach through Wonder Project. Founded in 2023 as a studio serving faith and values audiences, Wonder Project is led by former Netflix and YouTube executive Kelly Merryman Hoogstraten and award-winning Christian filmmaker Jon Erwin.

Last year, the studio partnered with Amazon MGM Studios to launch “House of David,” a show about the biblical king, on Prime Video. The show has earned more than 44 million viewers across 240 countries, landing in Prime Video’s list of top 10 most-watched shows for several weeks. It was recently renewed for season three.

In the fall, Wonder Project launched its own streaming subscription on Prime Video in the U.S. The paid add-on, which currently costs $8.99 a month, attracted about 500,000 subscription signups in its first three weeks and offers original content as well as other family-friendly offerings.

Sight & Sound hopes the platform will make its shows more accessible than ever.

“We are hoping that there’s a new audience through Wonder that will get to experience the good news of the gospel,” said Montgomery.