Godspell - My Approach

What I like most about Godspell is the simplicity of the message...

To build a community where the value of the whole is greater than the sum of its parts, you must provide an honest, earnest, and compelling vision for how the world will be improved by its existence.

While I'm by no means a religious person, I take to heart the messages delivered in the New Testament. I have a healthy but somewhat obsessive interest in Passion theatre, particularly when it's presented well and in a thought-provoking manner. But I'm also a firm believer that the two most debilitating syllables in theatre are Je-sus: say them once, and you've got the audience's attention; say them twice, and you'd better have an exceptionally good reason for doing so. Never say them three times within a half-hour period, even/especially if you're cursing. They're theatrical uranium, so few have ever successfully harnessed them for good affect.

So, why does Godspell work? Plenty of websites and mini-theses have broached the subject, and the ones I agree with speak to the "Christ as Harlequin" notion. Presenting Passion theatre in the guise of a Commedia Del'Arte piece softens the message the same way a jester is often considered the most powerful member of a royal court. A jester can say "The world is coming to an end, but what do I know, I'm just a jester..."

But what doesn't hold up well is a notion of a "community" of jesters. If everyone in a classroom is the class clown, and there's no teacher in charge, and no one to serve as an audience, what's the point. No, for Godspell to work, the people that make up the community must be real unto themselves: they must have something important on the line, just as any other character in theatre must. We must care about them or the songs are meaningless. And that would suck, because the music is pretty phenomenal.

So, here's the approach I'll be taking:

• In auditioning, I'm focusing on vocal ability first, acting ability second, and stage presence and humor third.
• I will be using the best mix of arrangements of the music possible.
• I will be genericizing the script, removing the stage blocking and annoying literary asides provided in the MTI libretto (they're interesting, but they clog up the script and make it harder to read). As part of this, I'll be removing the traditional original character names and giving them colors as a general guideline to which person says the lines, but I reserve the right to change them at will (and I will).
• I'm going to open up the second act with a Stomp-style group percussion piece, leading into the up-tempo version of Beautiful City from the 2001 National Tour (Alex Lacamoire, arranger).
• I'm going to close the Finale with the traditional "Long live God..." verses, but then I'm going to have the "Peggy" character come in with the more somber version of Beautiful City (in the key from the Broadway Jr. version), but I'm going to weave in verses from some of the other songs into it as the group comes together after the crucifixion, much the way the 2000 Off-Broadway Revival did at the beginning of the Finale, but more focused and (hopefully) with more impact.
• There will be no "resurrection". The impact Christ had on his followers while he was alive is more interesting and important to me than having him show up magically in a glowing white light and pushing rocks around after the Finale. Sorry, not going to do it.

The next thing I need to nail down is the choreographic approach. Shawn Lanz and Arryck Adams have expressed an interest in working on it, and they'll be working on Conejo Players Children's Theatre production of Charlotte's Web (directed by Erin Fagundes), so I was thinking of auditioning for that to get a sense of how they work. We'll see if time permits.

Ah well, more as time permits...

- Sean