More spiritual than religious, “Godspell” is not necessarily all about Christianity according to Stephanie Coltrin, who is directing a production of “Godspell” opening at the Hermosa Beach Playhouse this week.
“Obviously it's the Christian Bible and it's the Christian Jesus but when you see the show that doesn't even really matter,” said Coltrin who is also the associate producer. “It's really about this community of people and somebody who leads them. It really could relate to anybody. It's just a really, really special piece.”
According to Coltrin and the show's cast, “Godspell” is one of the more collaborative productions on stage. Originally perceived as a “hippie rock musical,” “Godspell” has evolved and is updated with any production. A setting was never outlined in the original story that was written by then-college student John-Michael Tebelak, who wrote “Godspell” as a master's thesis project in 1970 while he was attending Carnegie Mellon University. After a run at Café La MaMa in New York, Stephen Schwartz was brought on to create a new song score along with the score's lyrics that originated from the Episcopal Hymnal. While the songs have remained fairly static over the years, the script is ever-changing and updated with pop culture antidotes and references.
“It's a really fun piece of work because with Stephanie giving us all this room to fill in it's been a real awesome experience collaborating with everyone and kind of coming up with your own thing,” said Robert Steinmiller who began his career at the age of 10 with the national tour of “Les Miserables” and has starred in such films as “The Ref,” “Rudy” and “Jack the Bear” before starting his own production company, District 78. “Stephen Schwartz already does a really good job with the music, and you just take those parables and really make them your own.”
Steinmiller and fellow cast member Chuck Pelletier are very familiar with stage work, acting and even writing their own musicals.
“This is the first show I've ever been in that has been sort of an amalgamation of those two procedures,” said Pelletier, who wrote the musicals “Sour Grapes” and “The Green Room,” of writing and acting. “Stephanie on the first day of rehearsals said, ‘I don't want to use a lot of this dialogue. I want you to come up with the dialogue in between the songs.' So the songs remain constant, everything in between the songs is up for grabs.”
To update the show, Coltrin set “Godspell” in New Orleans a day after Hurricane Katrina hit and each character is named after the actor, like Bob (Steinmiller) and Chuck, except Jesus and Judas. While pop culture references are frequent, the stories and lessons of Jesus remain consistent in “Godspell.”
“Whether you believe he was the savior, prophet or just a person, he was saying, ‘be nice to each other' and that's what it's really about,” Coltrin said. “It's less about a specific religion. It's not specifically Catholic or Baptist. The title is actually taken from the archaic Old English pronunciation of gospel. The literal translation is ‘good news' and that's what it's really about. It's joy and sharing and happy.”
Coltrin added, “It's less about his life than it is about the stories he told and the lessons he taught. There's very little biographical information about him at all. It's more about the Sermon on the Mount and ‘love thy neighbor.' It's basically just the stories he told. They make jokes about turning water into wine. They talk about the miracles and things like that but very little biographical information at all. He's really supposed to be someone who is very modern who's based on the Jesus in the Bible but isn't exactly that.”
One of the primary concepts and intentions of “Godspell” is “to spread joy,” according to Coltrin and the cast.
“I think through music and dancing and all the fun that we do it really is inspiring,” Steinmiller said. “I think you leave the theater going, ‘That's what it's about,' whether you call it Christianity, or whatever you call it. As humans, what we always want to do, we want to put a label on something but it's just about loving another guy like your brother and go, ‘I have sat in 45 minutes of rush hour traffic but I know you probably have to or if you didn't you might on the way home or tomorrow.'”
Pelletier added, “I grew up a fundamentalist Christian, and there was wonderful things in that and there's a lot in really good churches, Christian churches, where there tends to be a very positive message. In churches I don't feel as comfortable in, it's a really mixed message and it's as negative as it is positive. It seems to me that this musical brings out the positive aspects of Jesus, which I think he was all about. I mean Jesus the man, Jesus the savior, whatever, what he said was basically be happy, be positive and all those things that our society is really starting to learn. The more that message gets out I think the more people see that this is what Jesus was all about in the first place.”
“Godspell” previews run through March 29. The gala opening will take place March 31 at 8 p.m. at the Hermosa Beach Playhouse at the corner of Pacific Coast Highway and Pier Avenue. Sunday matinees take place at 2 p.m. April 1 and 8 with the closing show April 8 at 7 p.m.
For more information, call (310) 372-4477 or visit www.civiclightopera.com.
|
