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Special Programming(free admission with transFigures ticket purchase)

Jesus Camp screening & discussion with filmmakers -
Saturday, April 21st at 5:00 pm
This Academy Award nominated film follows a group of children to Pastor Becky Fisher's Kids on Fire Summer Camp, where they are taught to become dedicated Christian soldiers in God's army and are schooled in how to take back America for Christ. The film is a first-ever look into an intense training ground that recruits born-again Christian children to become an active part of America's political future. Screening will be followed by a discussion with the filmmakers, Heidi Ewing and Rachel Grady.

Religion in America panel discussion –
Sunday, April 22nd following the 3:00 pm matinee
Join us after the show for a discussion about religion in America today, including Mara Vanderslice and Rabbi Janise Poticha, Temple of Sinai, Massepequa, and first responder Chaplain for NYC.

Mara Vanderslice is the Founder and Senior Partner at Common Good Strategies, LLC (CGS). CGS is a political consulting firm that provides Democratic elected officials, candidates and state parties with the expertise, understanding, and resources that will allow them to authentically engage and connect with America's diverse religious communities. Mara was the Director of Religious Outreach for the Kerry-Edwards 2004 campaign, the first national religious outreach liaison for a Democratic presidential campaign. Prior to her service on the Kerry campaign, Mara worked on Community and Faith Outreach for Howard Dean in the Iowa primaries. Mara has seven years of campaign and advocacy experience, for faith-based organizations including, Sojourners and Call to Renewal, the Jubilee 2000 campaign for debt-relief and the United Church of Christ. She received her BA from Earlham College, in Richmond, IN, where she graduated Phi Beta Kappa and with honors for her work in campus ministry. Past and current clients of Common Good Strategies include: Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee (DSCC), Casey for Senate campaign, Michigan Democratic Party, Kansas Democratic Party and Sebelius for Governor. Mara and the work of Common Good Strategies has been profiled in The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Atlantic Monthly, PBS, the BBC and NPR.Mara also appeared as a guest on The Stephen Colbert Report on Comedy Central.

Pinchbottom Burlesque presents Blasphemy!
Saturday, April 28th at 11:00 pm
The Bible commands “Thou Shalt Be Drunken, and Shalt Make Thyself Naked” (Lamentations 4:21), but which faith truly embraces this dictum? Only one: Pinchbottom’s Church of the Almighty Posterior, led by Pastor Nasty Canasta and Reverend Jonny Porkpie. Join them for Blasphemy!, an old time tent
revival and burlesque show featuring sermons by Jo Boobs, Julie Atlas Muz, and Father McTigger — all guaranteed “holier than thou!” Thrill to burlesque recreations of key scenes from the Bible, including: the annunciation, the crucifixion, and the resurrection!

Women & Religion panel discussion -
Thursday, May 3rd following the 8:00 pm performance
Join us after the show for a discussion with experts on women's studies and contemporary politics about how religion impacts the lives of women. Speakers include Aisha H.L. Al-Adawiya, Reverend Elizabeth Garnsey, Reverend Katharine Henderson and Rabbi Katie Mizrahi.

Aisha H.L. Al-Adawiya is the Founder and Executive Director of Women In Islam Inc., an organization of Muslim women which focuses on human rights and social justice. Ms. al-Adawiya organizes and participates in conferences, symposia and other forums on Islam, Gender Equity, Conflict Resolution, Cross-Cultural Understanding, and represents Muslim women in United Nations forums as a Non-Governmental Organization. She also coordinates Islamic input for the Preservation of the Black Religious Heritage Documentation Project of the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture. Ms. Al-Adawiya serves on numerous boards related to the interests of the global Islamic community. She also serves as a consultant to numerous interfaith organizations and documentary projects on the Muslim American experience. Ms. al-Adawiya is a guest host and producer on Tahrir, WBAI Pacifica Radio in New York City. Aisha al-Adawiya specializes in developing educational forums on human rights and social justice, interfaith initiatives, and cross-cultural understanding.

The Rev. Elizabeth Garnsey grew up in Greeley, Colorado. As an infant, she was baptized in the Episcopal Church, but when Elizabeth was 13, her family joined a new Pentecostal church on the edge of town. The contrast between these two traditions eventually sent her on a personal mission to make sense of this wide range of religious expression. Her years-long quest led her back to the Episcopal Church more than ten years ago. Elizabeth brings a diverse background to her priesthood. She worked on Capitol Hill in Washington, D.C. as a legislative correspondent for a couple of years and then, in a moment of youthful impulse, sold her few earthly possessions to move to Paris, where she worked for two years as a journalist, a career she continued in New York for several more years. Eventually Elizabeth was drawn to study theology at Yale Divinity School with an eye towards becoming a religion reporter. She served for eight months at St. Paul's Chapel during the clean-up effort after 9/11, and during seminary, served as a seminarian at Christ Church New Haven, an Anglo-catholic parish located near the Yale College campus. The church drew her undeniably in and, in a reversal of sorts, writing now serves her work in the church rather than the other way around. She joined the staff of St. Bartholomew's Church in August of 2005 and was ordained a priest in the New York Diocese on September 23, 2006. She co-created an evening alternative worship service, Emerge (currently on hiatus), and is also developing a category of adult formation and pastoral care classes entitled "Soul Care, Self Care." Classes and workshops under this umbrella address life in its many dimensions, from health and end-of-life issues to living single in New York and managing one's finances, with many more subjects in-between.

The Rev. Dr. Katharine Henderson is currently the Executive Vice President of Auburn Theological Seminary in New York City. She oversees the educational program, including developing and directing program initiatives, among them, multifaith programs for women, corporate executives, and Face to Face/Faith to Faith, a multifaith leadership program for teenagers from around the world. She is also responsible for fundraising and day to day operations of the seminary. Henderson received a doctorate in higher education from Teachers College Columbia University in 2000. She received her M.Div. degree in 1982 from Union Theological Seminary in New York City and her B.A. from The College of Wooster in Wooster, Ohio, Phi Beta Kappa. She was ordained as a minister in the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) in 1982 and is currently Parish Associate at First Presbyterian Church in New York City. Since 1985, Dr. Henderson has worked in theological education as Director of Development at Auburn Seminary from 1993-2000; Associate Dean of Students and Director of Admissions at Union Seminary, 1985-1993. Prior to that she was Associate Pastor at Central Presbyterian Church, New York City. Her book on God's Troublemakers: How Women of Faith are Changing the World is available through Continuum International Publishing Company. Henderson’s intellectual interests include leadership, particularly among women; the role of progressive religious leadership in the public arena and religion in the media; communication across lines of faith, race and class; and the role of philanthropy in shaping the third sector of society. She sits on the Boards of the New York Women’s Foundation, Summit Preparatory School in Montana, Ghost Ranch Camp and Conference Center, The Palestinian Children’s Initiative and the American Friends of the Interreligious Coordinating Council of Israel. She has taught, spoken and preached in seminaries, churches and synagogues, and to community groups. Recent keynote speeches include: Alchemists at Work: God, Money and the Common Good, October 2001, Generations of Giving Conference, The Aspen Institute, and Women Alchemists At Work: Turning Good into Gold delivered at A Force for Change, a conference of the Jewish Women’s Foundations, Chicago, IL in April 2002. An entry, Public Voices of Religious Women, appears in The Encyclopedia of Women and Religion in North America, Rosemary Skinner Keller and Rosemary Radford Ruether, Editors, Indiana University Press, Bloomington, IN, 2006.

Rabbi Katie Mizrahi graduated from Stanford University with a BA in Religious Studies and Philosophy in 1997 and from Reconstructionist Rabbinical College in 2005. She currently serves as sabbatical rabbi at West End Synagogue in New York City while Rabbi Yael Ridberg is away. Katie came to New York (quite a shift from her childhood home of Boulder, Colorado) as a Marshall T. Meyer Rabbinic Fellow at Congregation B'nai Jeshurun last year. She loves the work of the rabbinate and considers it a tremendous privilege to share in the joys and sorrows of her congregants, to be a ritual artist, and to translate the sacred teachings of the Jewish people into relevant and inspirational guidance for our day.

Jerusalem Syndrome screening & discussion with the filmmaker –
Saturday, May 5th at 5:00 pm
Erin Sax Seymour’s documentary Jerusalem Syndrome is a full force journey into the lives of five individuals under the Syndrome’s spell, offering a Jerusalem seldom seen. It is a unique and unparalleled portrayal of the world's most holy and argued landscape and of the curious lines that divide faith and madness. Award winning writer/director/producer Erin Sax Seymour is the recipient of numerous grants including most recently the National Endowment for the Arts Grant, a Texas National Endowment for the Humanities Grant, an Israeli Cultural Arts Grant and the Belgium Production Foundation. Her films have been screened at film festivals around the world, as well as broadcast both in Europe and the Middle East. She has lectured on her work both as a panelist for conferences, as well as a visiting artist for institutions such as The Chicago Art Institute and the University of Colorado at Boulder. In 2000 her film Jerusalem Syndrome received the Grand Prize at the World Religion Festival in Italy and has been the subject of numerous articles, school courses and most recently and a play.