Sacred Heart University Professor Publishes 'God On Broadway'

Sacred Heart University's Charles A. Gillespie, associate dean of the School of Performing Arts (SoPA), associate professor of Catholic studies and director of the Pioneer Journey, has published a new book, God on Broadway: Revealing the Sacred in the Spectacle. 

Drawing on years of teaching his popular God on Broadway course at Sacred Heart, Gillespie explores how Broadway shows and commercial theater—often dismissed as pure entertainment—can function as spaces for theological reflection. The book, released by Fortress Press, an imprint of Augsburg Fortress Publishers, argues that theater's religious references, language, music and spectacle invite audiences to engage enduring questions about God, memory, meaning, tradition and community, even outside traditional church settings. 

“I realized that any time we gather in a room and tell stories as humans, we're encountering that which is beyond ourselves,” Gillespie said. “That's the truest thing I know.” 

In God on Broadway, Gillespie analyzes a range of productions, including Godspell, Spring Awakening, Hamilton, Doubt, Hadestown and Angels in America, showing how attention to the good, the true and the beautiful in these shows can reveal deeper spiritual themes. He situates popular theater within the Catholic intellectual tradition while challenging long-standing assumptions that religious references in commercial or popular culture lack theological significance. 

Just as importantly, the book reflects the collaborative, dialogue-driven environment of the Sacred Heart classroom. Gillespie developed many of the book's arguments through sustained conversations with students, revisiting and refining chapters in response to their interpretations and questions. Several sections, he noted, were shaped directly by discussions in his courses. 

“In God on Broadway, Dr. Charlie Gillespie brilliantly illuminates how the spectacle of commercial theater becomes a surprising and profound space for sacred encounter, reminding us that the work we do at Sacred Heart University can transform both our classrooms and the wider cultural stage,” said Mark A. Beekey, dean of Sacred Heart's College of Arts & Sciences. “I look forward to his continued leadership as he guides SoPA into a future shaped by the insight and imagination reflected in this remarkable book.” 

The book concludes with a reflection on time, presence and community in live performance, considering how theater exists in fleeting, unrepeatable moments that nonetheless leave lasting meaning. Gillespie writes that live performance reminds audiences that significance emerges not only from what is staged, but from who is gathered to witness it together. 

The final pages draw inspiration from the musical Into the Woods, echoing its closing assurance that “no one is alone”—a line that Gillespie uses to underscore the book's central claim that both theater and theology are, at their core, communal acts of meaning-making in response to God. 

God on Broadway: Revealing the Sacred in the Spectacle is available in paperback and e-book formats through Fortress Press and major booksellers, including Amazon.