When the John Anson Ford Amphitheater opened in a canyon near Hollywood 85 years ago, it was to be the host of a Christian pageant that ran until 1964, when a lawsuit opposing religious programming in a county theater ended its run. This weekend, the theater presents a play featuring multiple religious traditions - all thriving in America.
The play, "A Long Bridge Over Deep Waters," is the creation of the Los Angeles Cornerstone Theater Company; it depicts 10 faith groups in the chronological order of their arrival in what is now Los Angeles, each interacting with the faith preceding and following it in a series of loosely connected vignettes.
So, in the first scene, a Tongva Indian encounters a Roman Catholic immigrant, who meets a Jew, and so on through Christian, Buddhist, atheist, Bahai, Hindu, Muslim, and, finally, the multifaith gay-lesbian-bisexual-transgender group.
"For us it's all about how do we build a more inclusive theater in the U.S. and how to bring together people who otherwise wouldn't be in the same room," said Bill Rauch, Cornerstone's artistic director and co-founder. Mr. Rauch knows that friction can occur where communities' borders rub up against each other, and faith's borders can be especially prickly.
Since its founding 20 years ago, Cornerstone has always explored concepts of community - both geographical and those based on things like shared occupation or language. In 2000, looking for a new community to explore, the group chose faith and how it both divides and unites people.
Cornerstone started what it calls its "faith cycle" in partnership with the National Conference for Community and Justice, which changed its name from the National Conference of Christians and Jews to signal its inclusiveness, to build relationships with Los Angeles faith groups.
It held discussions with the conference's help to understand how different religions felt about topics like rituals, belief and social justice. Then it selected six communities and spent the next five years staging a play in each, culminating in the current production, now in the second weekend of a two-weekend run.
The six communities were Catholic immigrants, gay-lesbian-bisexual-transgender people, African-American Christians, Muslim Americans, Jews and Hindus. Each cast had about 50 people, mostly community members mixed with Cornerstone actors. The conference led talks for communities and cast members on the play's issues; similar small-group discussions take place for audiences after performances.
"We try to create something that really engages people in the content and not just the artistic expression of it," said Lucky Altman, who was the Los Angeles regional program director for the conference during Cornerstone's faith cycle. Such discourse and candor led to surprises and drama in the play-making process.
The Catholic immigrant play included a group from Cambodia whose scenes were a loose interpretation of the Biblical story of Noah, with participants fleeing the killing fields instead of a flood. One Cambodian woman had a monologue about losing her entire family under the Khmer Rouge regime. In a cast gathering before the show, she revealed that the monologue was actually her life story.
The playwriting process was not a lone artistic endeavor. The writers hired by Cornerstone participated in "story circles" with their specific faith community to look for inspiration. In the circles, groups of 4 to 50 people discussed topics like whether they prayed on Sept. 11, 2001, and the role of foods in celebrating religious holidays.
"I did dozens and dozens of circles," said James Still, the author of "Bridge." He followed all the plays in preparation for his own.
Despite such close communication between the communities and the writers, problems arose.
Mr. Rauch said, for example, that organizers did not anticipate how potent a theme homosexuality would be for most of the religious groups.
It came up in the Christian play when an African-American asked Cornerstone to focus on the silence of his community's clergy on H.I.V. and AIDS. After seeing the play, one clergy member gave a sermon on the subject the next week.
It also came up when the Muslim playwright included a gay character that caused such objections in the Muslim community that Cornerstone commissioned a new play that had a much subtler gay character. Still, protest was strong.
"It was problematic for us, as the idea is to do a collaboration with the Muslim community," said Baraa Kahf, a Muslim technology consultant who acted in the play. "And if they do something that immediately offends the community, then obviously there's no room for collaboration."
He said homosexuality is not a priority for his community right now. "We're having to deal with our neighbors being whisked away in the middle of the night, and detention, and being accused of terrorism," he said.
In "Bridge," the chronological order of religions placed the Muslims next to the gay-lesbian-transgender group - whose members come from many faiths but generally do not feel accepted by them. So, this time Cornerstone kept the gay character despite objections. Cornerstone and the Muslim community held a meeting and at its end, all but one Muslim said they would see the show.
Balancing the priorities of faith groups, and being sensitive to each, is what makes this process exciting for Cornerstone. So is working opposite community members.
"It's such a grounding process," said Page Leong, a Cornerstone member. "The community part of it keeps you in an honest place - you're responsible for helping convey stories of people you are face to face with, onstage with. It is pretty enlightening in a way that doing regional theater or doing television would never be for me."
"Bridge" is the first time the many faiths are together in a cast. Visits by the cast to one another's worship services are planned.
"I think that it emphasizes to me that it isn't about the religion, it's about the people and the fact that we can all do the play together and play each other's roles and faiths, " said Abdullah al-Muntheri, a Muslim engineer who plays a Hindu storyteller. "It's not about ideology, it's about people and the relationships you have with them."