Stephen Baldwin to Play Pastor With a Pub in Proposed New Family-Friendly Sitcom

A Pastor Walks Into a Bar…

It’s not a joke!  A new sitcom is in development which chronicles the unlikely story of a pastor who inherits the Hard Knocks Bar right across the street from his church.

Actor Stephen Baldwin would play Pastor Keaton of Solid Rock Church, the lead role in “Rock and a Hard Place”, a television series envisioned by radio personality and comedian Darren Marlar.  John W. Schlitt of the Christian rock band Petra has also been slated to play a role in the series.

In an interview with The Blaze, Marlar explained that it all started with a dream.  He means that literally:  Three years ago, Marlar had a quirky dream about a preacher who inherited a pub; and the general idea of a man of the cloth running a bar stuck with him.

It seemed a long shot, but born-again Christian Marlar approached Stephen Baldwin about playing a role in the series.  To his surprise, Baldwin’s agent reacted with interest.  According to The Blaze:

Since Marlar didn’t have a big budget to put a pilot together, his team — Baldwin included — decided to launch a Kickstarter campaign in an effort to raise the necessary funds.

The goal for the campaign was $50,000 during the first fundraising wave. That benchmark was superseded on Thursday when the effort concluded with more than $65,000; the lump sum was donated by hundreds of individual donors who fully embraced the television concept.

Marlar and his team (including Stephen Baldwin) are now mapping out their next steps:  meeting with local actors, tweaking the script and planning additional fundraising to get the project running.  If the project proceeds as hoped, filming of a pilot episode will likely begin in spring or early summer in northern Chicago.