Busted Halo feature: entertainment & lifestyle October 19th,
2006  Saints Gone Wild    BustedHalo: One of my favorite
chapters was about St. Genesius, the patron saint of actors.
What a conversion story. But boy, did the Romans ever put the
theater to some perverse uses…  Thomas Craughwell: Yeah. A lot
of actors were slaves back then, and for the death scenes they’d
bring in condemned criminals and execute them onstage. Genesius
was a comic actor during the reign of Diocletian, the emperor
who attempted to rid the Empire, once and for all, of all
Christians. So when Genesius’ troupe was told to perform before
Diocletian, they wrote a play they thought would appeal to the
emperor—a farce mocking Christian baptism.  Genesius played the
convert, and another actor played the priest. And when the
actor-priest poured the water over Genesius’ head and said the
words of baptism, grace actually flowed over Genesius along with
the water. All of a sudden he stood up and walked down to the
atrium of the stage and started