"The Screwtape Letters"

THE SCREWTAPE LETTERS has played to sold-out audience in major cities across the U.S., including New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, Washington D.C., Atlanta, Boston, Houston and Dallas and in London. Over 600,000 people have seen the production, which continues to attract a national following.

The Associated Press called Lewis’ The Screwtape Letters “Devilishly funny!” Newsweek named it among the best productions of the year (2018) in New York City, and The Chicago Sun-Times called The Screwtape Letters “Smart!...Sizzling Entertainment!”

The Screwtape Letters, along with The Chronicles of Narnia, remains one of Lewis’ most popular and influential works. The book's piercing insight into human nature and the lucid and humorous way Lewis makes his readers squirm in self-recognition made it an immediate success. When first published in 1942, it brought worldwide fame to this little-known Oxford don, including the cover of Time magazine. 

The play creates a topsy-turvy, morally inverted universe set in an eerily stylish office in hell, where God is called the “Enemy,” and the devil is referred to as “Our Father Below.” The play follows His Abysmal Sublimity, Screwtape, and his slavish creature-demon, Toadpipe, as they train an apprentice demon, Wormwood, on the art of tempting an unsuspecting human on earth. 

Directed by Max McLean, THE SCREWTAPE LETTERS stars Brent Harris as Screwtape (Scar in The Lion King national tour). 

The idea for Screwtape came to Lewis after listening to Hitler’s Reichstag speech on July 19, 1940, while it was simultaneously translated on BBC Radio. Lewis wrote, “I don’t know if I’m weaker than other people, but it is a positive revelation to me how, while the speech lasts, it is impossible not to waver just a little. Statements which I know to be untrue all but convince me, if only the man says them unflinchingly.”  

Lewis dedicated the book to his close friend J.R.R. Tolkien, who had expressed to Lewis that delving too deeply into the craft of evil would have consequences. Lewis admitted as much when he wrote, “Though I had never written anything more easily, I never wrote with less enjoyment . . . though it was easy to twist one’s mind into the diabolical attitude, it was not fun, or not for long. The work into which I had to project myself while I spoke through Screwtape was all dust, grit, thirst and itch. Every trace of beauty, freshness and geniality had to be excluded.” 

THE SCREWTAPE LETTERS is produced by Fellowship for Performing Arts. Founded by Artistic Director Max McLean, Fellowship for Performing Arts is a New York City-based production company whose mission is to create theatre and film from a Christian worldview to engage a diverse audience. It produces coast-to-coast tours in both major performing arts venues and university theatres. McLean is a recipient of the C.S. Lewis Foundation Award for Lifetime Contributions in Faith and Dramatic Arts. 

FPA also produced the hit film The Most Reluctant Convert: The Untold Story of C.S. Lewis, which is available to stream now on Amazon Prime, Apple TV, Google Play, PureFlix and YouTube, as well as to purchase on DVD and Blu-ray.