A church in Texas is gaining an abundance of negative traction online for its altered performance of the hit Broadway musical “Hamilton”.

The church in question, Door McAllen, put on two performances of the musical on Aug. 5 and 6. The show was live-streamed on the Door’s YouTube channel and clips were posted to their other social media sites as well. Although almost all of the “Hamilton” footage was deleted from their various social media accounts, clips of the show immediately resurfaced and went viral on TikTok.

Junior, Kristen Williams, found the clips very amusing, “but done in poor taste.”

The performance put on by the church changed the content of the musical to include many references to Christianity throughout the show and overall made the show a Jesus-centered parody. Some edited lyrics include: “My hope is in Jesus. If you could just give him a chance today, that would be enough.” The musical ended with a sermon that involved anti-LGBTQ+ messages.

This does not sit well with many fans of the Broadway show who came across the viral videos online like Sofia Marasco, a senior at Wiregrass Ranch.

“To me, it’s so ironic, because so many members of the [original] cast are part of the LGBTQ community,” Marasco conveys. “It makes me so annoyed that people will criticize and hate queer artists but still profit off of them or enjoy the things they make.”

While this production may seem very odd to the general public, it isn’t uncommon for different religious practices to adapt songs from popular films or shows to spread the word of their religion. This also is not the first production put on by the Door church; previous productions of “Toy Story”, “Beauty and the Beast”, and “Despicable Me” were also removed from all of their social media sites since the “Hamilton” controversy.

Per copyright law, churches are allowed to play or perform copyrighted music during religious services, but this does not permit any streaming or distribution of said performance nor does it indulge any public performance outside of service.

This has caused the “Hamilton” production company to serve the Door McAllen church a cease-and-desist. Many fans feel this illegal production of “Hamilton” went against the main goals of the original show.

“The whole point of this musical was to do something original by having a POC-centered production on Broadway…to try to make the narrative more inclusive,” Marasco said.

In more recent news, on Aug. 23, the Door McAllen church issued a public apology to the creators of “Hamilton” and claimed they will pay for the damages caused. Additionally, “Hamilton” says they will donate all the money they receive from said damages to the South Texas Equality Project in support of the L.G.B.T.Q. community.

To see “Hamilton” the way Miranda intended, watch a filmed version of the show with the original Broadway cast streaming now on Disney Plus.