Schedule	Buy Tickets
Ongoing	Mon-Tue, Thu-Sat, 8pm; Sat, 2pm; Sun, 3pm, 7pm

Profile

A squeaky clean Christian boy band comes to the big city with their Raise the Praise tour only to discover on the night of their final concert that the souls that most need saving are their own. Will the queeny member of the quintet come out of the closet? Will the orphaned Latino reunite with his family? Will the thug with a thing for communion wine get a clue? Not exactly. But the goofy innocence informing the send-up songs and not-so-serious soliloquies were never intended to dig too deep. Savage satire this is not. Like any effective feel-good musical, Altar Boyz is committed first and last to happy endings. Guided over the loudspeakers by American Top 40 DJ Shadoh Stevens as the voice of God, these five perky, well-meaning heartthrobs croon, rap and harmonize a set of bubblegum pop rich with silly double entendres and even cornier punch lines. As the Sony Soul Sensor—a gussied up electronic counter that totals lost souls onstage and off—indicates from stage left, Altar Boyz is aiming for the lowest common denominator. The jokes are broad; the characterizations, outlandish; the melodies, a 'N Sync pastiche. Yet with Christopher Gattelli’s witty, occasionally gymnastic choreography, this sweet-natured spoof can lift the spirits of even the most jaded theatergoer. Praise be. — Drew Pisarra