Portal:Musical Theatre/Selected article/5

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Godspell is a 1970 play by John-Michael Tebelak. Following closely on the heels of the similarly-themed Jesus Christ Superstar, it opened off-Broadway on May 17, 1971 and has played in various touring companies and revivals many times since. 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 show originated in 1970 as Tebelak's master's thesis project, under the direction of Lawrence Carra, at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Most of the score's lyrics were from the Episcopal Hymnal, set to music by the cast members. Tebelak then directed it, with much of the student cast, for a two-week, ten-performance run at New York's La MaMa Experimental Theatre Club, opening February 24, 1971. It was brought to the attention of producers Edgar Lansbury (brother of Angela Lansbury) and Joseph Beruh by Carnegie alumnus Charles Haid (associate producer), who wanted to open it off-Broadway.

The producers hired Stephen Schwartz, another alumnus of Carnegie Mellon's theater department, to write a new song score (although By My Side was retained from the original score). Schwartz's songs included a variety of musical styles, from pop to folk rock, gospel, and vaudeville. As with the original score, most of the non-Schwartz lyrics were from the Episcopal Hymnal. See also Godspell (1971 Off-Broadway Cast).

Godspell moved from the Cherry Lane Theatre to the larger Promenade Theatre on August 10, 1971, where it became one of the longest-running off-Broadway musicals, before moving to Broadway in June 1976, where it ended its run in September 1977 after an additional 527 performances, for a total of more than 2,600.