The president of The Great Passion Play wants to attract more college students to the production near Eureka Springs.
Randall Christy, who is also a Baptist minister, said it would help counterbalance the "philosophical view" promoted in many colleges. That view has resulted in more college-aged people dropping out of church, he said, citing a study from the Pew Research Center.
The 2014 study, called America's Changing Religious Landscape, found that college graduates were more likely than those with less education to cite philosophy/reason instead of religion as their guide between right and wrong.
Fourteen percent of college graduates surveyed said they didn't believe in God, compared with 6 percent of those with a high school education or less.
"I think it refers to prevalent philosophies of atheism and agnostics among college professors in most mainstream colleges, but I cannot cite the exact stats," Christy said via email. "I think it's pretty obvious that is happening in America."
The study, however, doesn't specifically say that.
"Nowhere in the study do our researchers mention the religion of college professors nor higher education institutions as a reason for college-aged people dropping out of church," said Leila Barzegar, a communications assistant with the Pew Research Center. "The minister seems to have made that connection himself, but it is not a Pew Research Center data-supported trend."
Christy said he'll offer half-price tickets to sponsors that would be willing to buy 100 or more to give to college students. Tickets for adults 17 and older are normally $27 each.
"A donor who gives $1,350 will send 100 college students to the Passion Play and can designate which college receives the tickets," Christy said in an email.
"The Great Passion Play will absorb half the cost of the tickets as our contribution to this effort. Let's inspire 50,000 or more college students over 2016 and 2017 season to experience the Great Passion Play," Christy wrote in the email. "By doing so, we can impact the future culture of the U.S.A. The message of Jesus Christ is still the greatest hope we have!"
Attendance at the Passion Play peaked at 289,212 in 1992. Since then, attendance has dropped below 50,000 per year, said Kent Butler, a Passion Play spokesman who also portrays Jesus in the play.
The 4,000-seat amphitheater on Magnetic Mountain had an average performance attendance of 550 last year, Christy said. It's billed as "America's #1 Attended Outdoor Drama" and has had more than 7.7 million visitors since opening in 1968.
This year's season at the Passion Play begins May 6. The season has 82 scheduled performances and runs through Oct. 29, with shows every Friday and Saturday night and on some other nights during the week.
The outdoor drama depicts the last week in the life of Jesus Christ. The performances feature a cast of 175 people and live camels, horses, donkeys, sheep and birds.
In the genre of mid-America Biblical dramas, Eureka Springs is competing with Branson, 53 miles to the northeast, where Noah the Musical and now Moses have been staged at a 2,000-seat indoor theater since 2008. Tickets for Moses are $45 each.
But the outdoor Passion Play near Eureka Springs is the "most epic production of the life of Christ," Christy wrote in a Sept. 1 letter to "partners and patrons."
And college students need to see it, he said.
"I think it could have a positive Christian cultural impact," Christy said.
Christy said he may give some tickets directly to colleges that request them.
Sarah Bing, student activities and organizations coordinator at North Arkansas College in Harrison, said she likes that idea.
"We would definitely be open to that," she said.
Harrison is 43 miles east of Eureka Springs and 34 miles south of Branson. Bing said North Arkansas College students get discounts at some Branson venues, including Silver Dollar City and the Showboat Branson Belle, but not at Sight & Sound Theaters, where Moses is playing through the rest of this year and again starting in March 2017.
"I don't think Moses has contacted us," she said.
Other colleges near Eureka Springs include Ecclesia College in Springdale, 41 miles to the southwest; the University of Arkansas at Fayetteville, 45 miles to the southwest; and College of the Ozarks in Point Lookout, Mo., 50 miles to the northeast.
But Christy said he's not targeting colleges by vicinity.
"We are looking for sponsors who might want to provide tickets to students at colleges of their choice," he said, noting that the college or sponsor would need to provide transportation to Eureka Springs.
Besides being president of the Passion Play, Christy is also pastor of Union Valley Baptist Church in Ada, Okla., and president of the Gospel Station Network. Christy spearheaded a fundraising drive in 2012 that saved the Passion Play from foreclosure.
The interviews with Christy for this article were conducted by email. He didn't return a telephone call but responded frequently to questions via email.
The study cited by Christy came out last year. The survey was conducted in English and Spanish among a nationally representative sample of 35,071 adults interviewed by telephone, on both cellphones and landlines, from June 4 to Sept. 30, 2014. Findings based on the full sample have a margin of error of plus or minus 0.6 percentage points, according to the Pew Research Center.
The study indicated more young people are eschewing religious identification.
A high percentage of younger millennials are religious "nones," according to a May 12 news release from the Pew Research Center. That meant they said they were atheists, agnostics or that their religion is "nothing in particular."
The study found that 35 percent of adult millennials (people born between 1981 and 1996) are religiously unaffiliated. That compares with 23 percent for Generation X (born between 1965 and 1980), 17 percent of baby boomers (born from 1946 to 1964) and 11 percent of Americans born from 1928 to 1945.
The percentages of people who avoided religious identification grew across the board between 2007 and 2014, but more so for millennials than other groups, according to the study.
Metro on 04/10/2016