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| Billy striking a powerful pose during a promotional photo shoot. |
Signature Theatre’s 25th Anniversary Season is
swinging for the fences with its next musical, Elmer Gantry. Under the
direction of our very own Artistic Director, Eric Schaeffer, Gantry is set to step up to the plate
and knock another musical out of the park for this amazing season. The cast and
production team feature a cavalcade of old Signature favorites and energize the
show with a familiar spirit and energy that is sure to delight audiences.
In the title role, Charlie Pollock, of Broadway’s Violet, leads the charge as he whips Sister
Sharon Falconer’s revival troupe into a well-oiled preaching machine. Pollock’s
character in the show is not entirely
fictitious. Based largely off of popular early 20th century baseball-player-turned-preacher
Billy Sunday, Elmer’s character is rich in history, personality, and bravado.
Billy “The Evangelist”
Sunday
Born into poverty on November 19, 1862, Sunday grew up in at
the Soldiers' Orphans' Home in Davenport, Iowa. At the orphanage, Sunday obtained
a decent primary education and the realization that he was a skilled athlete.
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| Billy in his National League uniform from his baseball days. |
In 1880, Sunday relocated to Marshalltown, Iowa, where he played
for the town baseball team. His professional baseball career was launched in
1883, when, A.G. Spalding, the president of the Chicago White Stockings, signed
Sunday. He would play in the majors for eight years and was among the league
leaders in stolen bases.
During one of his final seasons in the majors, Sunday began
attending a local Presbyterian Church. In the spring of 1891, Sunday turned
down a baseball contract for $3,500 a year to accept a position with the
Chicago YMCA at $83 per month. For three years, Sunday visited the sick, prayed
with the troubled, counseled the suicidal, and visited saloons to invite patrons
to evangelistic meetings.
In 1896, Sunday struck out on his own. For the next twelve
years Sunday preached in approximately seventy communities, most of them in
Iowa and Illinois. Towns often booked Sunday meetings informally, sometimes by
sending a delegation to hear him preach and then telegraphing him while he was
holding services somewhere else.
As his popularity grew, Sunday was welcomed into the circle of the
social, economic, and political elite. He counted among his neighbors and
acquaintances several prominent businessmen. Sunday dined with numerous
politicians, including Presidents Theodore Roosevelt and Woodrow Wilson, and
counted both Herbert Hoover and John D. Rockefeller, Jr. as friends.
As far as his religious stance went, Billy Sunday was a
conservative evangelical who accepted fundamentalist doctrines. His sermons
were clear, loud, and often stressed the failures of the sinful and how they
will come to be punished for straying from the way of the Lord.
Elmer Gantry opens
October 7th and runs until November 9th in the MAX
Theatre. For more information please
visit our website or call the box office at 703-820-9771. Follow along with
Elmer Gantry on social media with #SigGantry
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| Billy Sunday is captured preaching in this lithograph by artist George Bellows |
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