MINISTRY; Or, The Surgical Revelation

MINISTRY is an immersive horror experience set in a surgical demonstration in 1876 in Rochester, New York. It was first performed in September of 2025 as part of Rochester Fringe Festival.

Watch MINISTRY

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MINISTRY / The Surgical Revelation / Immersive Theatrical Horror / Unlike Any Yet Seen / Thrill for the Senses / Stimulant for the Mind / Cosmic Mysteries Laid Bare by Modern Science / For Tickets holybone.zone/tickets / Proudly a Part of the Final Fringe at The Spirit Room's Conjure Box / One Hundred Thirty Nine State Street / Ten Dollars Only / Midnight Showing / September 12th, 11:30pm / September 13th, 11:30pm / September 18th, 11:00pm / September 19th, 11:30pm / September 12th, 11:30pm / Children Not Permitted / Fear Not / A New World is Dawning / Free of All Pain Amble Cross and Dr. Erasmus Darwin operate on Ms. Comfort Cross, who screams in ecstacy. Dr. Darwin stands looking over Comfort Cross, kneeling, while behind them, a strange creature weaves a cryptic dreamscape of words. Dr. Darwin places a fragment of necrotic rib in a sample tray. The audience witnesses the spectacle, engrossed and grossed out. Dr. Darwin makes his case to an intruiged and disturbed audience. A corpse lies under a sheet on an operating table. Behind the table is a chalkboard with various medical diagrams pasted on, and a tray of medical implements. Dr. Darwin, brought to his knees by a fit of coughing, looks up at Ms. Comfort, who leans over him sympathetically. Dr. Darwin pleads with an audience member. An abandoned coat lays on the floor next to a smear of blood and two lifeless legs. Dr. Darwin drinks a bottle of ether. Photo of the cast and crew of MINISTRY Photo of the cast of MINISTRY

Cast & Crew

Ishmael Walker

Ishmael Walker as Imago

Ishmael Walker (Any Pronoun) is a theatre director and multidisciplinary performer, known for their work with The Velvet Noose. Through voice, music, and pen, Ishmael is capable of creating entire worlds. They can shift into mind-bending shapes with their rangy limbs, statuesque physique, and grotesque flexibility.

Cieo

Cieo as Dr. Erasmus Darwin

Cieo (he/him) is a clown who’s been a performer as long as he can remember. From creating immersive parties with Clown Unification Ministries, to hosting shows, they love to be in the spotlight. Their theater experience is mostly high school, but they will never turn down an opportunity to go crazy.

Brigette Meskell

Brigette Meskell as Comfort Cross

Brigette Meskell (they/them) is a librarian, musician, and local DJ.

Kay Coscia

Kay Coscia as Amble Cross, Writer, Director

Kay (they/them) is an unrepentant dabbler, shifting between theater, dance, activism, engineering, clowning, and writing. They are thrilled by the opportunity their writing and directing debut presents to inflict a few of their many obsessions on an unsuspecting public.

Alex Bush

Alex Bush, Costume Director

An artist since birth, Alex (they/them) takes any chance to dabble in a new medium. Alongside visual arts, they’ve been on the stage, in the wings, and behind the scenes. They’re eager to help realize a unique production with interesting techniques and which is sure to be a memorable experience.

Luke

Luke, Costumes

Luke (he/him) is a seamster, engineer, artist, and dancer. Having dipped his toes in the waters of theatrics before, Luke is eager to help out wherever possible and jump neck deep into the wacky world of immersive theater.

Leandro

Leandro, Costumes

Leandro (he/him) is a drag performer, makeup artist, and fabricator of the weird.

Scarlet

Scarlet, Score & Lighting

Scarlett (she/her) is a DJ, Synthesist, Vocalist, and Sound Engineer with a long-standing passion for theatre.

Zachary Gilbert-Mahoney

Zachary Gilbert-Mahoney, Stage Manager

Zachary Gilbert-Mahoney (he/him) was born and raised in Rochester, NY, where he works as a freelance filmmaker and screenwriter. His work usually drifts between the absurd (talking dogs) and the unsettling ( the dark heart of man). He also owns Rochester’s very own GTFO Escape Rooms!

Special thanks

Jacob Rakovan, Mark Anthony Ciurca, Jeremiah Van Galder, Theresa Ferrell, Special Circumstances, and the entire Madeira clan, without who’s religious instruction and example this show could not exist.

Bonus content

Further Reading

If you found this show scintillating and would like to explore its themes and influences, we full heartedly recommend the following works:

  • Flannery O’Connor, Wise Blood
  • Lindsey Fitzharris, The Butchering Art
  • Mary Shelly, Frankenstein
  • John Milton, Paradise Lost
  • The paintings of Thomas Eakins, in particular The Gross Clinic & The Agnew Clinic
  • David Wilcove, No Way Home: The Decline of the World’s Great Animal Migrations
  • Georges Bataille, The Accursed Share
  • Deleuze & Guattari, Capitalism and Schizophrenia
  • Baruch Spinoza, Ethics, Tractatus Theologico-Politicus
  • Donna J. Haraway, Staying with the Touble
  • Malinda Maynor Lowery, Lumbee Indians in the Jim Crow South
  • Ursula K Le Guin, The Carrier Bag Theory of Fiction
  • William S. Burroughs, Ghost of Chance
  • Frank Herbert, DUNE
  • Robin Wall Kimmerer, Braiding Sweetgrass
  • Vine Deloria, God is Red
  • Charles Bell, Great Operations of Surgery
  • Anne C. Coon, The Bloomer Costume: Fashion Reform, Folly, and “Intellectual Slavery”
  • John Lawson, A New Voyage to Carolina
  • Stephen Jay Gould, Full House: The Spread of Excellence from Plato to Darwin
  • Franz Fanon, The Wretched of the Earth
  • W.E.B. Du Bois, Black Reconstruction in America
  • FromSoftware Inc., Bloodborne
  • The Gospel of John
  • The Book of Revelation
  • Phillip K Dick, VALIS

…and of course, Karl Marx.