By Kenneth Jones
18 Feb 2010

Kaller, now making her Broadway directing debut, said there was no purgative group-therapy session about religion, but some natural sharing did emerge over time.

"There was organic, continued conversation about faith," Kaller said. "The first time around — in the interest of full disclosure — we were on a very, very low Equity budget, so we got x number of hours a day, x number of hours a week. But what started happening was, we started sharing stories. We started sharing stories about our growing-up faiths…about how our faiths changed when we had children…

"…It started happening at lunches, it started happening when we were rehearsing scenes. We would do a rehearsal of a scene, and all of a sudden one of the actors would start crying and then tell a story. And isn't that what faith and religion is all about — storytelling? It's Bible stories."

Maddie Corman, who plays the Catholic-raised Holly, said, "The genius of Sheryl Kaller is that everything she does is on purpose, but she makes it look like it's just fun and cozy and snuggly. She's a big earth mama, and we all feel like we're just hanging out, but really she has a very clear plan. I think we talked about our characters' journeys, but our own individual faith didn't come up that much, and I don't know if it was on purpose or if we were busy talking about our children, our husbands, wives, lovers… And I think that we also all realized how precious certain things are."

Did working on Next Fall stimulate the actors' personal approach to spirituality?

"It definitely did, and it also made me more protective of it," Corman said. "It's funny, I think in our society…religion is still one of the most hot-button topics out there. We talk about sex easily, and money, and almost anything, but it's a very private, precious thing, one's faith. And so, definitely, it made me examine where I come from and where I am, but it also made me look at how judgmental I am.

"I don't fancy myself judgmental at all. But I think what Geoffrey's play does so beautifully is turn on its head what you might think about someone who is an evangelical Christian or who is a liberal New York agnostic. Who are these people we think we know from that label, and we don't? I fancy myself this really open-minded artist, and yet I think I've been really judgmental and possibly missed out on some really great people because of what society chooses to label them, or what church or temple or whatever they might go to. So definitely I've been opened up."

(Kenneth Jones is managing editor of Playbill.com. Write him at kjones@playbill.com.)