On Friday, the curtain will open for the home entertainment premiere of DAVID-Live broadcast live from the Sight & Sound theater in Lancaster, Pennsylvania. Years in the making, the lavish musical production is the latest show to entertain and inspire audiences through the company, which now includes its own streaming service, www.sight-sound.tv.
Katie Miller, director of marketing and communication for Sight & Sound, said the new push to be able to stream for those who can’t attend in person has opened up an entirely new audience. The move was first required through the Covid-19 shutdown but has since become an area of growth for the ministry. The first broadcast, “Queen Esther,” premiered in summer 2020.
“Only God comes in, in the moments where you’re at your lowest when we were asking ‘Can we recover? Will we ever be able to truly recover from this?’ And then actually use that as a launching point for the biggest growth we’ve experienced as an organization, I think in our history, in such a short period of time.”
DAVID-Live will utilize 12 cameras in various locations, including a flyover camera, capturing all the action taking place on the theater’s massive stage. With the live productions unfolding around the audience, Miller says the televised productions actually make things slightly easier for the audience.
“You don’t have to decide where you’re looking; it’s chosen for you,” she said. “’This is the best moment of this scene, here it is.’ And it’s almost like watching a different show, because you get the detail of the emotion on the actors’ faces and you get the up close shot of our flock of sheep that run up and down the aisles.”
The live event will include a 15-minute pre-show and a 20-minute intermission, with exclusive behind-the-scenes interviews and a sneak peek at how the production was created. For the rest of the time, Miller insists it will totally be live, where anything could happen.
“We’ve had people say, ‘There’s no way you’re doing this live, in real time,’ and we respond, ‘Yeah,’ ” she said. “That’s what the theater does, right? It brings us together, and we get to celebrate and honor these stories in the same way that Jesus did. He was the ultimate storyteller. So, for us, it’s the coming together at a specific time, across time zones, to celebrate and honor this very worshipful show. We just can’t contain ourselves.”
DAVID-Live will premiere Friday, Sept. 2, on Sight & Sound TV – www.sight-sound.tv – at 7 pm EST.