On Thursday, April 20, Sight & Sound Theatres officially announced that a brand new show, “Daniel,” is in production. The show will open at the Strasburg theater on March 14, 2024, and run through December 31. Tickets will be available for purchase starting this month.
Along with the familiar story of Daniel in the lion’s den, the narrative will include Daniel’s three friends who came to be known as Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego, and it will recount how these four men remained faithful to God even during exile in the decadent, idolatrous palaces of Babylon.
Longtime audience members may recall that Sight & Sound previously produced “Daniel: A Dream, a Den, a Deliverer,” which ran in 2002 and 2003 and again in 2008 and was at its launch the largest show the theater had staged. The upcoming 2024 production will not be a reprise of that show but an entirely new take. Sight & Sound’s communications manager, Stephanie Lefever, told the Lancaster Patriot, “It will include a new storyline — while staying true to Scriptures, of course — completely new sets, costumes, technology and music.”
The new project’s promo video, which can be streamed on Sight & Sound TV, shows Sight & Sound’s director of marketing and communications, Katie Miller, interviewing Kristen Brewer, the lead producer of “Daniel.” Brewer has been an associate producer on Sight & Sound’s story team since 2016. Previously, she assisted with the score and script development for “Jesus” and was an integral part of the production team of “Queen Esther.”
Brewer described how the show’s grand sets and costumes take the audience on a journey from Israel to Babylon and even to bits of Persia. “As dangerous and as dark as Babylon might be, it was also impressive and it was also beautiful, so we’re excited to take our audience there with Daniel,” she said. “We’re also excited to experience the visions and the dreams in the middle of Babylon, and that’s how God primarily enters the story. So, we get to see heaven and earth collide a little bit when those things happen.”
The drama of “Daniel” — at its core, a story of hope and of faith — gives people a new way to experience one of the most famous Bible stories of all time. Although the production is still in early development, Brewer noted that the most famous elements in the narrative are likely to captivate viewers. “I think that the fiery furnace has the potential to be one of the most powerful moments in the story,” she said. “It opens up and you see God in there protecting those guys. I’m excited for our audience to have that experience both visually and emotionally.”
The climax of the story, when Daniel gets thrown into a lion’s den, will also have great impact. “It’s gonna be wild — in the best way,” Brewer said, “but then also so redemptive.”
More information about the upcoming show can be found at sight-sound.com.
