My wife is co-directing a production of "Cotton Patch Gospel" right now, 
with Freshmen students from Columbia College, where she teaches acting. For those of you not familiar with the show, it's a bluegrass passion play/musical of sorts, very faithful to the spirit of the gospels, but with a "Jesus comes from modern day Atlanta" kind of feel, music from Harry Chapin. Now, there are two challenges with this production right from the start:
1. The freshman are from Chicago - and are all trying to put on southern accents to play the parts...
2. As far as we know, not a single one of them are Christ-followers in their own lives, so they are also "acting" like followers of Jesus.
Now, in acting we talk a lot about layers - the idea that at the core of a performance, there is truth, and what happens on the stage needs to be REAL - 
But in order to do that, we have to add artificial layers - the fact that your reciting a rehearsed script is FAKE. You're movements are planned, in some cases, choreographed - FAKE. Sometimes you're breaking into song - FAKE. Add an accent - FAKE. Add a religious belief that you barely are familiar with much less believe - FAKE. All of that has to come together to make something that is REAL enough to capture the emotion of the audience, and create an engaging performance.
So how do you elicit the essence of Christ following in the deep south with pagans from the city? Here's what I recommended to Kristi as she made her stump speech to her cast:
Everybody has a hero - unfortunately, in our current culture, we don't actually know our heroes. These actors are being asked to believe in Jesus - make him their hero - but they have a hard time connecting with that - because they don't know Brad Pitt, Bono, Angelina Jolie, whoever. So in the script their interacting with their heroes they have no context to do it in, because they don't have a truth-touchstone in their own lives. 
When it comes to worship - we worship our rock stars and celebrities, and we don't really know them. So any attempt to emulate that onstage will read as fake.
Kristi and I have several friends from college who have made it on TV and film, and while none of them are household names (yet!) it is such a rush when we see them on TV. One time, I saw my good friend Rick Hoffmann on The Practice, and there he was, acting with Dylan McDermott and James Spader - for a two part episode - What a rush it was for me! Why? Because I know him!
Now I didn't worship him, or course - but yo usee where I'm going - if your only context for worship is celebrity, you have to break through that to connect with somebody that you know, if you want to show what real worship is on stage.
And as a Christ follower, it's comforting to know that our hero who deserves and demands our worship is ALSO someone that we can know. 
And if these freshman actors can put those pieces together, they might not only execute a faithful retelling of an old old story, they might even meet a real hero for the very first time.
Of course, that insight doesn't necessarily demand that the Christianese community write a musical of their own about it... But who can stop them, really...
