9 Comments

I'd forgotten the beauty in April Fool. Thank you, Noel.

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" we all are connected " as the comments are all personal how Godspell came into their lives......

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why oh my why did i ever leave the always something new creatively going on Pittsburgh ! thank you for writing about Godspell in a Positive light. So many felt that it was was handling the scriptures in a negative manner ,and should not be allowed to be performed ,let alone partnering with any church !

side note for noel: guess who was helping with the auditions at CMU- al quess who auditioned and didn't know the fellow who was said No ? me . PPS i'm so enjoying learning the stories of the songs. you should write a book with all the song lyrics and the story about the song... tho i know at this point in time, another book to write might be the last thing you want to hear !

For the love of it all , lynn

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Godspell has always been a favorite of mine. It shows the human nature of Jesus in the context of easily understood terms. It brings His humanity and hence His death into focus without pomp and ceremony, but rather with reality. It touches me deeply with each iteration I have seen. I always wanted to be in a production of Godspell but got too old too fast. Noel's April Fool has always been very moving to me. It resonates the human nature of Son of Man and in a way that we see the fool for being the fool of LOVE. I had the pleasure of being in the Stephen Schwartz musical, Children of Eden this past summer. It was one of Schwartz's favorite shows though it never made Broadway. It makes the book of Genisis come to life in the same way Godspell approaches Mathew's gospel.

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In 1998 - or was it 1999? - my dear friend Pam invited me to help her with a teen summer theatre experience. We put together a production of “Godspell” at the WYO Theatre in Sheridan, Wyoming and it was an amazing experience! I loved working with these high school-age young people and especially with Pam. And it meaningful to me to do this in a secular setting rather than making it a “church-y” thing.

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Very cool!

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Too weird. I wrote orchestra charts for Godspell, when it played at Colorado Women's College, where i was then teaching. Best wishes, Dick Weissman

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Was voluntold that I’d be playing Jesus in the First UMC production of Godspell alongside the youth choir. “Don’t worry about memorizing the lyrics,” said the choir director. “We’re going to have 100 old tv sets showing the words so the audience can follow along!” Opening day, want to guess how many of the tvs were working? 😂 thanks for this reflection love that show!

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Absolutely Fabulous and very true. As a retired pastor who sang ( I WAS the choir in some of the smaller parishes I served out west) I'd often turn to Godspell and Jesus Christ Superstar as ways of exemplifying popular culture.

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