2005 Godspell
Godspell was our second full scale work but was the School’s first major event of our 120th anniversary year.
Godspell was originally conceived by John Michael Tebelak in 1971 as his Masters Thesis project at Carnegie Mellon University. The story is told that the author was struck by the tedium of Easter services that year and when leaving St Paul’s Cathedral after the service a policeman, suspicious of his long hair and beard, searched him for drugs. He was struck by the ironic contrast between the love of Christ and the world around him. Tebelak later became the resident dramaturgy at St John the Divine Cathedral in New York City. The vivacious music of the show was composed by Stephen Schwartz, whose impressive list of credits include Pippin (1972), the Baker’s Wife (1976) and award winning songs for films like Pocahontas, the Hunchback of Notre Dame and the Prince of Egypt.
At this production, the audience enjoyed more than 150 students, parents and staff joining together to bring colour and movement to the greatest story in history. Performing shows of this kind draws our community together, which intrinsically is a worthwhile activity.
Staging this wonderfully popular and successful Broadway musical in our Cathedral is both audacious and at the same time entirely appropriate. Since medieval times, cathedrals have been places of creativity as well as divine worship. Mystery plays were staged in the cathedral close and abbeys and today the great cathedrals of the world host concerts and events. Since it alone has survived the long history of our many relocations, St Andrew’s Cathedral is the place of our deepest nostalgia and romance. Therefore, the drama of one of Sydney’s most beautiful buildings, which holds so many precious links for the School, seemed a brilliant place to offer this show to the public.
Removing all the pews and liturgical furniture, the Cathedral itself became a garden in which was revived the colour and vivacity of the protest era of the late 1960s. A marvellous crew of students, parents and staff worked so hard to achieve this effect and provided our cast with a truly memorable experience. It was an arduous process to prepare seating in a space where sight lines are restricted by the beautiful sandstone pillars.
The lovely design concepts of one of our parents helped us make the building part of the story rather than simply a space in which to perform. It was a magical time.
