BWW Preview: SINNER/SAINT Brings Faith into the LGBTQ Conversation

It's high praise for theatre artists when their work inspires audience members to push for reproduction of a dramatic work. For recent Westmont alums and playwrights Lindsey Twigg and Danielle Draper, who collaborated on their performance piece Sinner/Saint, community interest came from Donald Scherschligt, the young founder and president of Spectrum Ministries. Scherschlit saw the original mounting of Sinner/Saint in Westmont's 2016 Fringe Festival, and has since partnered with the two young writers to bring a one-night-only reproduction of this show, which features the LGBTQ-Christian reconciliation movement's message of acceptance and equality, to Santa Barbara audiences. "It's important to us that the play bring up questions about what it means to be a queer Christian or a queer-affirming Christian," Twigg says. "That intersection of identity is still a fairly new concept, so we hope to humbly offer suggestions of what that looks like through storytelling theatre."

The stories in Sinner/Saint tell of two women's connections to the LGBTQ community: one via personal experience (coming out within a culture of conservative Christianity); and one via family identity (memories of a gay uncle who worked in an NYC nightclub through the AIDS crisis years). While Sinner/Saint's characters display the fractured relationship between the LGBTQ and Christian communities, they also foster hope for eliminating boundaries many faith-based groups maintain against LGBTQ inclusion. "As a Gay Christian, I constantly find myself pulled between two groups," Draper says. "I grew up in a nurturing Christian environment, but recently discovered an equally loving LGBT community. While both groups promote messages of healing and support for those within their circles, people such as myself cannot flow between both communities." The two narratives in Sinner/Saint are cultivated from personal stories and performed by Twigg and Draper.

Twigg and Draper, who worked most recently with the annual On The Verge Theatre Festival, return to the Community Arts Workshop on Thursday, August 25th for their presentation of Sinner/Saint. Sponsored by Spectrum Ministries, this performance is a chance to witness an example of artists serving a community message of good will that works towards bridging a current cultural divide.

Sinner/Saint

Written, Directed, and Performed by Lindsey Twigg and Danielle Draper

Thursday, August 25th 8PM
Community Arts Workshop
631 Garden Street in Santa Barbara