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Pastor wonders: What the h---?
Celebrities to stage Hell House for grins

Hell House is going Hollywood - with a twist.

The incendiary show, which sent the Denver area into an uproar with its graphic depiction of hell and the sinners who go there, opens Aug. 28 in Los Angeles.

It features a large cast of celebrities, including comedians Bill Maher as Satan and Andy Richter as Jesus, plus Julia Sweeney, Richard Belzer and more.

So why has a professional production, mounted at the Steve Allen Theater on Hollywood Boulevard, put fire in the eye of Hell House's creator, the Rev. Keenan Roberts?

Because the show will use Roberts' script and special effects "to lampoon (Christian) fundamentalist beliefs about hell," admitted producer Maggie Rowe, who bought a $200 Hell House kit from Roberts.

"It will be a parody of itself," she said in an interview Monday. "It will be very funny. We're having a hoot."

Rowe represents the Center for Inquiry-West, a group whose mission is "to promote and defend reason, science and freedom of inquiry in all areas of human endeavor."

Roberts' warnings that abortion, homosexuality, drugs and teen sex lead to hell get a new twist on the Hollywood production's Web site, www.cfiwest.org:

"Feast your eyes on a grody abortion!" the site trumpets. "Find out why it's wrong to be gay!" "Descend into the pits o' Hell!" ...