“Above all, the first act of Godspell must be about the formation of a community.”

—  Stephen Schwartz

Godspell Script Notes and Revisions (1999) http://www.webcitation.org/query?url=http://www.geocities.com/cugodspell/scriptnotes.html&date=2009-10-25+17:58:43
Context: Above all, the first act of Godspell must be about the formation of a community. Eight separate individuals, led and guided by Jesus (who is helped by his assistant, John the Baptist/Judas), gradually come to form a communal unit. This happens through the playing of games and the telling and absorption of lessons, and each of the eight individuals has his or her own moment of committing to Jesus and to the community. When Jesus applies clown make-up to their faces after "Save the People," he is having them take on an external physical manifestation that they are his disciples, temporarily separating them from the rest of society. But the internal journey of each character is separate and takes its individual course and period of time. Exactly when and why this moment of commitment occurs is one of the important choices each of the actors must make, in collaboration of course with the director. At the end of the first act, the audience is invited to join the community through the sharing of wine (or grape juice), mingling with the actors during intermission.

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Stephen Schwartz 4
American musical theatre lyricist and composer 1948

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