Two sold-out programs at a venue that almost said no.

Event Type: Worship Production / Large-Scale Event
My Role: Lead Producer
Scale: ~3060 adults and ~300 children across two back-to-back programs

Background

Renaissance Church had outgrown its regular venue for Easter and leadership wanted to mark the occasion with something larger, both in scale and in significance. The Apollo Theater, one of the most iconic venues in New York City and a cultural landmark in Harlem, was the vision. There was one significant obstacle: the Apollo rarely hosts church services.

In the venue’s history, only a handful of religious gatherings have taken place on its stage, including sermons by Jesse Jackson in 1969, Fela Kuti’s sermon and musical performance in 1991, and Suzan Johnson Cook’s worship series in 2008. Renaissance Church would be joining a very short list.

Initial outreach began in January 2025. Final approval came approximately one week after the request was submitted, leaving roughly twelve weeks to produce a first-of-its-kind event at a large-scale event production venue, a new kind of undertaking for me and my team.

Goal

Secure approval from the Apollo Theater and produce two back-to-back Easter programs for an audience significantly larger than any single-service attendance at our regular location, while running concurrent children’s programming in a separate building next door.

Strategy

Getting the Apollo to say yes required reframing the event entirely. Rather than pitching a church service, we positioned it as an Easter Celebration program, a community cultural gathering. That framing earned approval from the Apollo’s events team and opened the door to everything that followed.

From there, the work was coordination across multiple fronts simultaneously. As lead producer, all external communication with the Apollo flowed through me. Internally I connected our Production and Creative Director with the Apollo’s AV Engineering team, worked with our Communications Director on congregation-wide logistics, and coordinated with our Operations Director on volunteer staffing and security across both buildings. Every department had a piece of the production; my role was making sure none of those pieces moved independently of each other.

Results & Impact

Both services ran to maximum theater capacity. Renaissance Church became one of only a handful of congregations in the Apollo Theater’s history to hold a dedicated worship service on its stage.

The production held across two buildings, one volunteer and staff team, and a congregation experiencing something none of us had done before. When Pastor Jordan Rice delivered his Easter sermon, the room carried the kind of weight that only happens when the logistics disappear entirely and the moment takes over.