Noah

In 1995, Sight & Sound Theatres opened its musical version of the Noah story in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, and that show is the one that put the company on the map. More than five million people have seen it live since. 'Noah' is a recording of that production, which Fathom Events took to American cinemas in April 2019, and it has nothing to do with Darren Aronofsky's 'Noah'.

It's the story from Genesis. Noah and his family live righteously in the middle of a corrupt community until God gives him a job that sounds like madness: build an enormous boat to ride out the flood, with a pair of every animal on board. While they're building the ark, the neighbours mock them, and even friends and relatives turn their backs.

What sets the show apart is its size. The ark fills a wraparound stage some 300 feet wide, and real animals come across it, from an elephant to horses, goats, pigs, cows and ducks, among fire, rain and projections. There are musical numbers too, with the family singing about God's faithfulness and about their fear that He's left them, plus a fair bit of humour.

The company filmed the show again in 2016 with several cameras in front of a live audience, over two days and four performances, and spent the next few years getting it ready for cinemas. It was Sight & Sound's third Fathom event, after 'Jonah' and 'Moses', and each screening opened with a behind-the-scenes look and interviews with the show's director and executive producer. Its chief creative officer, Joshua Enck, calls it the place where spectacle meets story.

It played in 602 cinemas and passed a million dollars in its first week. The Christian press was warm about it, praising the spectacle and the family appeal, though Movieguide warned that close-ups give away beards, costumes and effects built to be seen from a distance, and that performances pitched for a huge auditorium look a little over the top on screen.

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