Former evangelical superpastor Ted Haggard slipped out of the Vineyard Theatre at 9:15pm tonight, with his wife, Gayle, and two other companions: filmmaker Alexandra Pelosi, who directed the 2007 HBO documentary The Trials of Ted Haggard, and her husband, Michael Vos. All four had just seen the new Civilians docutheater piece, This Beautiful City, in which Haggard’s notorious fall from grace plays an important role. They were the first people out the door, well before the rush of the crowd; by now, Haggard must be used to making quick, discreet exits when required. He was quiet, and wore an unreadable half smile. As they glided swiftly down 15th Street, Pelosi spoke up: “I didn’t… I didn’t understand the point,” she said tentatively. And then they were gone.

The lobby of the Vineyard was abuzz in Haggard’s wake. “He was smiling,” said the Civilians’ managing director, Marion Friedman, fanning herself with a program. It had all happened very quickly. “Jen Garvey-Blackwell, who’s the executive director [of the Vineyard], had been talking to Alexandra, but I didn’t know anything,” said Civilians artistic director Steven Cosson. “I was completely surprised. At ten minutes to [curtain time], they were holding the house, because he was still deciding if he wanted to see it or not. He decided to see it. And Marion called me and said, ‘Get down to the theater immediately. Ted and Gayle just walked in and are watching the show.”

The first priority was trying to ensure that the cast of the show didn’t find out who was sitting in the second-to-last row. “We were freaked out,” Cosson said. “It’s a major, major deal. I mean, we’re thrilled that he came, but if I was on stage, I don’t know that I could have pulled off doing the show. The actors go into the audience and pray in one of the church scenes. I kept walking backstage and just checking: saying, ‘Hi! How’s the show going? How’s the audience?’ Trying to sense if anyone was particularly nervous. But everyone seemed fine.”

“I didn’t know that it was going to happen,” said Stephen Plunkett, who plays Haggard in the show, as well as Haggard’s son Marcus. “I wish I had known, actually. But you can’t expect people to tell the cast something like that.”

The actors weren’t filled in until after the show. The nonperformers of the company and theater, however, were understandably curious as to how Haggard would react. “Because you could walk into the back of the Vineyard pretty easily without the audience noticing, the staff here were slipping in periodically and checking,” Cosson said. “And they would come back and say, ‘Oh, he laughed at this line. He smiled at that. He’s sticking around for the second act.’”

“It was surreal, watching Ted Haggard watch the show,” said Garvey-Blackwell. “It was nerve-racking for us. I went up to them at intermission, just to say that we were glad they were here and that they stayed. His wife was lovely. He said, ‘You’re doing a great job,’ and Gayle said, ‘We’re really happy to see the show.’”

What will Haggard make of his portrayal in This Beautiful City? It’s hard to say. “The material that Ted has in the show is just stuff taken from the public record; some of it we set to songs and some of it we theatricalized in particular ways,” Cosson pointed out. “But it is so personal. We’ve been communicating with Marcus over the course of this whole show, and certainly other people from [Haggard's former church] have come out to see the production and had a very positive experience. I think it’s probably a very different experience for Ted because he was at the center of the story.”

“It seems like he has a good sense of humor and a healthy sense of detachment about it all,” said Plunkett. “I mean, hearing him talk on Oprah and Larry King and this documentary, he seems to have a lot of perspective and openness about it.”

Pace Pelosi, This Beautiful City doesn’t really have a point—and that may be the point. It’s an evenhanded and open-minded account of evangelism in Colorado Springs, and it furthers a dialogue that the Civilians and the Vineyard are eager to extend. “Hopefully, we’ll continue the conversation with him,” said Cosson. Garvey-Blackwell seconded the feeling: “We’d love him to talk to us and let us know what he thought of it.”

But whether anything substantial comes of the visit (the show is scheduled to end its New York run on Sunday), everyone involved seemed proud that Haggard had shown up—and impressed. “I think it took a lot of guts for him to come,” said Garvey-Blackwell. “It was gutsy.”