ABOUT GODSPELL...
Godspell is a musical by Stephen Schwartz and John-Michael Tebelak. It opened off Broadway on May 17, 1971, and has played in various touring companies and revivals many times since, including a 2011 revival now playing on Broadway. Several cast albums have been released over the years and one of its songs, "Day by Day" from the original cast album, reached #13 on the Billboard pop singles chart in the summer of 1972.
The structure of the musical is that of a series of parables, based on the Gospel of Matthew (though three of the parables featured are only recorded in the Gospel of Luke). These are then interspersed with a variety of modern music set primarily to lyrics from traditional hymns, with the passion of Christ treated briefly near the end of the performance. It started as a college project performed by students at Carnegie Mellon University and moved to La MaMa Experimental Theatre Club in Greenwich Village. It was then re-scored for an off-Broadway production which became a long-running success.
The Toronto production in 1972–1973, which opened at the Royal Alexandra Theatre, was expected to be a run of a few dozen performances for what was largely an audience of subscribers to the theater's season. The Toronto run had a cast drawn entirely from local performers instead of from a touring company. After an enthusiastic response from the audience, the show moved uptown to the Bayview Playhouse in Leaside after its scheduled run at the Royal Alex ended and ran until August 1973, setting what was then a record run of 488 performances.
The Toronto production provided the first regular acting jobs for several notable performers, including Victor Garber, Eugene Levy, Andrea Martin, Gilda Radner, Dave Thomas, and Martin Short, and the show's musical director Paul Shaffer. The first Broadway revival officialy opened on November 7th 2011 to positive reviews from publications such as USA Today, New York Magazine and The Wall Street Journal. The production is an open-ended run.
