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The Lake Harriet Players are proud to present GODSPELL as the 2008 Spring Musical at Lake Harriet UMC. Show dates are Friday through Sunday, March 7-9 and 16-18; only eight performances in all.
GODSPELL, like the Good News itself, is a show that transcends time. Originally produced in the 1970's, the show was designed to be updated continually, offering fresh, new perspectives on what it means to be in community with Christ and with each other.
The inspiration for the musical originally arose on a snowy spring Easter Sunday. After attending a sunrise service that left him uninspired, John-Michael Tebelak, a long-haired student at Carnegie Mellon University, was stopped and frisked for drugs by a Pittsburgh policeman in the nave of St. Paul's Cathedral. Surely Easter meant more than this!
As a theater degree Master's candidate, Tebelak was required to direct a production of a classic or period piece for his thesis. He asked to be allowed to write his own play and, using his Easter Sunday experience, wrote a musical based on the Gospel (primarily according to St. Matthew). GODSPELL, The Gospel According to Today, was enthusiastically received.
A year later a chance meeting brought the show to New York City where it opened off-Broadway on May 17, 1971 where it ran for 7 years. In all, the musical achieved more than 2,600 performances both on Broadway and off. Perhaps most remarkable was the record-breaking run in South Africa, with a multi-racial cast in Johannesburg and a multi-racial audience in Capetown - events covered by the media worldwide.
GODSPELL is a compilation of lessons and parables concluding with the Last Supper, Gethsemane and Golgotha. Above all it is the story of the formation of a community led and guided by Jesus, so that the resurrection of Jesus is accomplished first and foremost within “the body of Christ” as his followers go into the world to declare the Good News.
Mark your calendar now, and join us this March for this fascinating journey called GODSPELL!
Shows Friday and Saturday evenings at 7:00; Saturday and Sunday afternoons at 2:00. Admission: Free Will Offering
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