{"id":118676,"date":"2024-10-25T18:01:19","date_gmt":"2024-10-25T18:01:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lascrucestoday.com\/magic\/2024\/10\/25\/elton-john-wants-audiences-at-his-musical-tammy-faye-to-leave-the-theater-with-a-smile-on-their-face\/"},"modified":"2024-10-25T18:01:19","modified_gmt":"2024-10-25T18:01:19","slug":"elton-john-wants-audiences-at-his-musical-tammy-faye-to-leave-the-theater-with-a-smile-on-their-face","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lascrucestoday.com\/magic\/2024\/10\/25\/elton-john-wants-audiences-at-his-musical-tammy-faye-to-leave-the-theater-with-a-smile-on-their-face\/","title":{"rendered":"Elton John wants audiences at his musical Tammy Faye to ‘leave the theater with a smile on their face’"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n
L-R: Elton John, lyricist Jake Shears, ABC’s Deborah Roberts; ABC\/Heidi Gutman<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Elton John<\/strong> is sharing what inspired him to make a Broadway musical about one of America’s most famous televangelists, Tammy Faye Bakker<\/strong>, who died in 2007.<\/p>\n

In an interview with\u00a0ABC’s Good Morning America<\/em>, Elton, who composed the music for the new show, said he admired Bakker’s support for the gay community.<\/p>\n

“She took a chance,” he said. “It was pretty remarkable for someone in the religious community.”<\/p>\n

“No one else in the evangelical community was very gay-friendly at all,” he added. “They, well, totally hated us. She stood out. And I loved her for that.”<\/p>\n

Elton specifically remembers the moment that Bakker, who was the co-founder of the televangelist program The PTL Club<\/em> with her then-husband Jim Bakker<\/strong>, invited Rev. Steve Pieters<\/strong> on the show in 1985.\u00a0During her groundbreaking interview with Pieters, Faye was moved to tears as Pieters opened up to her about what it was like living with HIV\/AIDS.<\/p>\n

“She won me over when she did that,” Elton said.<\/p>\n

The new musical, which is titled <\/em>Tammy Faye<\/strong><\/em><\/a>,<\/em> will tell the story of\u00a0Tammy and how she “stole the country’s heart,” according to a synopsis. Set in the ’70s, it follows her and her husband as they build their congregation.<\/p>\n

Elton said Tammy’s son watched the show and was “thrilled” about it. “He wants his mother’s legacy to be true,” he said.<\/p>\n

“I want people to walk out of the theater thinking, ‘God, she was OK … she was a wonderful woman. We might have misjudged her,'” he added. “I want them to leave the theater with a smile on their face.”<\/p>\n

Elton’s other musicals include The Lion King, Billy Elliott,<\/em>\u00a0Aida <\/em>and The Devil Wears Prada<\/em>, the latter of which just opened in London’s West End.<\/p>\n

Copyright \u00a9 2024, ABC Audio. All rights reserved.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

L-R: Elton John, lyricist Jake Shears, ABC’s Deborah Roberts; ABC\/Heidi Gutman Elton John is sharing what inspired him to make a Broadway musical about one of America’s most famous televangelists, Tammy Faye Bakker, who died in 2007. In an interview with\u00a0ABC’s Good Morning America, Elton, who composed the music forRead More →<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[425],"tags":[701,702,227,527,700,490,528,276,703,648],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lascrucestoday.com\/magic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/118676"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lascrucestoday.com\/magic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lascrucestoday.com\/magic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lascrucestoday.com\/magic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lascrucestoday.com\/magic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=118676"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lascrucestoday.com\/magic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/118676\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lascrucestoday.com\/magic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=118676"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lascrucestoday.com\/magic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=118676"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lascrucestoday.com\/magic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=118676"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}