The musical SPEARS: The Gospel According To Britney will be performed on Thursday in New York City. It tells the story of Jesus Christ through, unusually, the music of pop star Britney Spears.
The birth, life, death and resurrection of Christ will be described in the musical with the help of Britney familiar hits at Foxwood Theatre on November 7.
The unusual idea was hatched by 23-year-old Patrick Blute, who developed the show and debuted it in front of a crowd at Columbia University last year.
"So many of the heartaches, loneliness, and miscommunications that we feel are direct results of not listening. We don't listen to the pleas for help. We don't hear the desperations of family and friends," he wrote in an directorial inserts in the production last year, according to the musical's website, "But we will eavesdrop. We will infiltrate the personal space of others to get some type of satisfaction. To take context out of consideration through images. Through materialism. Through greed."
Blute pointed out that popular impressions of Jesus and Britney are "manifestations" that result from "accounts through the media, through the words of followers, of friends, of foes, of villains, of heroes, of liars, of biases."
"These are Britney's lyrics. These are Jesus Christ's images," Mr Blute says. "The Britney Spears you see is not Britney Spears. Remember that. The Jesus Christ you read is not Jesus Christ."
"It's a falsehood that people believe fame and fortune create happiness. That all 'deaths' receive a resurrection. I hope this project will show you otherwise through the power of listening and the power of forgiveness," Blute says.
Spears doesn't appear to have much in common with Christianity's savior but Blute says the musical should appeal to both the pop-obsessed and the pious.
"It is a piece that reconciles a lot of the anxiety 20-somethings feel about living in a society that has thousands of statements and not much substance. It appeals to those from a religious background because it tells an essential story using fragments of pop culture in a non-offensive way," he says.
