Through It All: Sight & Sound Theaters Celebrates 50 Years of Faithfulness

Sight & Sound's 2026 Performance of "Joshua" | Photo image courtesy Sight & Sound Theaters
For 50 years, Sight & Sound Theaters has brought the Bible to life on an extraordinary scale—combining theater, music, technology, live animals, and breathtaking production design to create experiences that have welcomed more than a million guests each year. What began as a family vision has grown into the largest faith-based theater company in the United States.

Few people understand that journey as personally as Katie Miller, Vice President of Brand Development at Sight & Sound Theaters and granddaughter of founders Glenn and Shirley Eshelman. For Katie, the company’s story is more than a remarkable record of growth; it is a family legacy shaped by faith, creativity, perseverance, and a commitment to telling stories from the Bible that matter.

I recently sat down with Miller to reflect on Sight & Sound’s first 50 years, how the organization has evolved while holding onto its founding mission, and what she believes the future may hold for a company that has spent five decades bringing Biblical stories and the love for Jesus to life.

Many people from my church travel to Sight & Sound regularly. It's like an annual pilgrimage for them. They build their vacations around a performance at one of your theaters. That speaks volumes to the quality, the professionalism, and just the overall experience, and how meaningful it is to people, especially people of faith. For you personally, when you hear stories like this, how does it feel to be part of this legacy?

Truthfully, it feels a little bit overwhelming, because it's so normal for us. It's what we get to do every day, and while we love it and we're passionate about it. I hope it never becomes normal to hear those stories. It feels so meaningful every single time we hear the stories of how important Sight & Sound has been in people's lives. And as time goes on, as I get older, and I have been here for my whole life, the stories that we hear have started to become incredibly meaningful to me. These are people saying, ‘When I was a kid, my grandparents used to bring me, and now we're coming with my parents, and my kids are having these experiences and these memories.’ And it's this multi-generational experience that we're watching unfold in real time. It feels incredibly special.

We're in a season of society where people are hungry for stories of hope, but they're also hungry for real, in-person experiences. We say we live in the digital age, and I know for my kids, I have two teenagers and a young adult. I'm watching them gravitate towards any experience that feels real, in person, and tangible. They are over living everything digitally all the time. And so, I think the combination of those two things … It's a hopeful, in-person experience that brings people together. That is just really special, and for us, it's incredibly meaningful as a family, and as a ministry, to hear that after all of these years, the impact remains the same, and in some ways is growing stronger.

Let’s roll back the clock to 1976. Your grandparents founded Sight & Sound during our nation’s Bicentennial year. And your grandfather began by doing multi-image slide shows in churches and theaters all over the country. From that point of your origin story to right now, it’s a completely different solar system. I'm sure you've talked to your grandparents about this, but did they ever foresee Sight & Sound growing into what it has become?

Not even close. I think they're as surprised as anybody. They both grew up on farms here in Lancaster County (Pennsylvania). My grandfather grew up on a fifth-generation farm and wanted to stay there for his whole life. But through a set of tragic circumstances, his dad had to sell the family farm, and so he found himself young, newlywed, and without a vocation. And so, in the 1960s, my grandparents were traveling with their multimedia productions and had two daughters at the time. They ended up eventually having four, but at the time had two. It kind of hit this wall for them of we cannot be on the road all the time. I wonder if we could have people come to us. And that really was what birthed the first Sight & Sound building, that first theater experience. From there, they added elements, and we've grown into what we are today. Not too long ago, my grandfather was here for one of our premieres, and afterwards, he pulled me aside, and said, “Can you believe that this is what this all became? I still can't believe it.” I said, no, I think so. Every once in a while, we all pinch ourselves and go, is this really what we're doing on a regular basis?

My grandparents are in their 80s now and definitely have this awe and wonder of the way that the Lord has continued to grow this ministry, through them, and then also beyond them as well.

You mentioned you have spent your entire life in and around the Lancaster theater. From your perspective, what has been Sight & Sound's greatest triumph during its first 50 years?

Oh my, that is a good question. There are the tangible ones. We had a fire in the late 1990s and lost everything. We were closed for months during COVID and recovered from that. We've made it through many recessions. We have had all sorts of trials, so there's many tangible ones where the Lord's faithfulness has been so evident, but for me, the thing that feels the most important is that no matter what has changed over the last 50 years, our passion, our purpose, and our focus of keeping these stories that proclaim the gospel of Jesus hasn't changed. That has been the same from day one, and so, I feel most grateful for that we made it through all of those trials. And personally, my kids are involved here, not just mine, but many of our family members. And so, we're into the fourth generation of being involved in some way, shape, or form. And to see that passion for the mission remain the same, feels like one of the most important things that we've been able to carry with us throughout the last 50 years.

Changing gears, do you have a funny story about Sight & Sound that makes you laugh every time you think of it?

Yes, I do. This is the first thing that popped into my mind, so I will tell you. You can't have 55 people on stage with up to 100 animals and children, and moving set pieces without having mishaps every once in a while. It happens. We have the best animal team, and 99% of the time, the animals go exactly where they're supposed to go. But years ago, ‘Jonah’ was on stage, and my kids were actually in the shows. I picked them up late one Friday night, and my daughter came out and hopped in the car. And I said, how was your day? And she just bursts out laughing as an eight-year-old little girl does. She giggled and said, “Mom, we had the big production number in the middle of the show, and one of the pigeons didn't go where it was supposed to go. It landed on the stage, and one of our cast members didn't want the pigeon to get hurt, of course, and so he reached down, scooped up this pigeon, held it under his arm, and performed his entire dance number that way. He then returned it to its home as soon as the scene was over. But she just laughed and laughed. She said, “We were all on stage dancing and laughing.” She said it was just so funny. And so you have those moments, and that's what makes live theater live theater, right?

Earlier this year you released a major movie project called “A Great Awakening”. Do you see Sight & Sound eventually trying to increase its footprint further in the cinematic world, or will the organization always be firmly rooted in live theatrical productions?

That's a great question. I mean, for us, it's more about, Lord, what stories do you want us to tell? We just had an off-site meeting last week where we were seeking the Lord and reflecting on our film's journey so far, and at the end of the day, the conclusion was we will pursue telling the stories we really feel like we are called to tell. Whether that is one per year, one every five years, if we don't have a story that feels like the right one to pursue, we'll pause until we do. Our heart is less about quantity and frequency. And yes, there's some practicalities we need to do to obviously maintain good business health.

Aside from some of those things, it's more about being sensitive to the stories that we feel called to tell and not just telling them for the sake of telling them, but really feeling that this story is one we are meant to tell. And so, we're going to do it to the best of our ability, whatever that means for any given story. Our heart and our hope is absolutely to keep growing the film side of Sight & Sound. We're already in pre-production for the third one. We are absolutely taking steps to continue in that vein. But in this moment, it's more about, Lord, what stories do you have for us, and less about the business structure side of it.

What does the future hold for Sight & Sound theaters? Five years, ten years ahead, and beyond?

We are really passionate, and we do feel the Lord calling us to grow. That is a thing that we know. Keeping everything exactly as we have been doing it doesn't feel like what is in our future. I think one of the questions is, what does that mean? We have some time set aside to be seeking the Lord over the next several months to say, are You calling us to grow our films division? Are You calling us to grow our streaming? Are you calling us to consider expanding on the theater side? Is there something else altogether? Right now, we don't have solid plans for what that growth looks like.

I feel like we're in a moment of, okay, we've had two very successful films, we feel really thrilled with how they performed at the box office. Our theater locations, Lancaster and Branson, are doing great. Sight & Sound TV continues to hold its own. We have our conservatory, our performing arts school here in Lancaster. Lord, what's the next thing? We've talked about expanding the conservatory and really focusing for a couple of years on growing the way that we're giving back and investing in the next artists, whatever that means. But right now, we are actually in a season of, Lord, what do you have next for us?

When all is said and done, what would you like to see as the legacy of Sight & Sound theaters?

Oh, my goodness, you're asking me such big questions today, Chris! But they’re great! We need a glazed almond break! (laughs) I say it to my kids. My oldest is 20, and he's here working. And on a regular basis, I'm saying to him, just remember that how you do what you're doing all day long is just as important as the output.

For us, if that can be maintained throughout the generations of our family, generations of leadership here at Sight & Sound, whatever that looks like in the future, I think we'll consider it successful. I would like faithfulness to God to be our legacy.

Sight & Sound Vice President Katie Miller | Photo image courtesy Sight & Sound Theaters
Learn More About Upcoming Productions from Sight & Sound Theaters: