Mark Kennedy
This 2019 photo released by The Berkshire Theater Group shows a scene from their production of Godspell. The John-Michael Tebelak and Stephen Schwartz musical is celebrating its 50th anniversary this month, a golden milestone for a show with roots in the hippie era but which can still speak to those on TikTok. (Emma K. Rothenberg-Ware/The Berkshire Theater Group via AP) May 10, 2021 - 8:45 AM
NEW YORK - It will come as little surprise to its legion of fans that the first professional musical to be mounted in the U.S. during the pandemic was âGodspell.â
The Berkshire Theater Group in western Massachusetts put on a production in August with plexiglass partitions between the actors and temperature checks for the audience. Why âGodspellâ? Its message of hope and love.
AP
NEW YORK It will come as little surprise to its legion of fans that the first professional musical to be mounted in the U.S. during the pandemic was “Godspell.”
The Berkshire Theater Group in western Massachusetts put on a production in August with plexiglass partitions between the actors and temperature checks for the audience. Why “Godspell”? Its message of hope and love.
″’Godspell’ just felt like the one,” says the Berkshire Theater Group’s Artistic Director and CEO Kate Maguire. “All of a sudden the story of ‘Godspell’ and what it’s about became more important.”
The John-Michael Tebelak and Stephen Schwartz musical is celebrating its 50th anniversary this month (May 17), a golden milestone for a show with roots in the hippie era but which can still speak to those on TikTok.
The John-Michael Tebelak and Stephen Schwartz musical is celebrating its 50th anniversary this month, a golden milestone for a show with roots in the hippie era but which can still speak to those on TikTok.
Some who traveled to western Massachusetts to see the pandemic “Godspell” were veterans from the show, like Peggy Gordon, who was in the original cast. “It was unbelievably emotionally powerful for us,” she says. Maguire told her she hoped the production would make Gordon proud. “I said, ‘You already have.’”
“Godspell” was an off-Broadway hit in 1971. It was made into a 1973 movie and jumped to Broadway in 1976, nominated for best score at the Tony Awards and a Grammy winner. One of the songs, “Day by Day,” reached No. 13 on the Billboard pop singles chart. It has been a springboard for everyone from Aaron Tveit, whose first real acting gig was on a “Godspell” tour, to Uzo Aduba, who was in a Broadway revival in 2011.
Berkshire Theatre Critics Association to Resume Operations
The Berkshire Theatre Critics Association, after a year of expectation, will resume its exploration of all things theatrical in the Berkshire Region.by BWW News Desk
The Berkshire Theatre Critics Association, after a year of expectation, will resume its exploration of all things theatrical in the Berkshire Region which the group identifies as all of Berkshire County, Southern Vermont including Dorset and Weston, Eastern New York State from Schenectady and Catskill to the Mass border, Northern Connecticut, and the Pioneer Valley of Massachusetts.
Member critics will once again be reviewing shows and writing articles about the many theater companies in this region and the Association will be resuming its annual award ceremony, know as The Berkies, in November. The Association counts as a Season any play, musical, revue or other theatrical forms that open between October 1 and September 30 of the following year.
Berkshire Theatre Group has announced Tony Award-winner Harriet Harris (Thoroughly Modern Millie) has joined the cast as Lady Bracknell in Oscar Wilde s The Importance of Being Earnest. Pulitzer Prize and Tony Award-winner David Auburn (Proof; BTG: The Skin of Our Teeth, The Petrified Forest) will direct BTG s production that will run from June 18 through July 10 under the Main Stage Tent outside at Berkshire Theatre Festival in Stockbridge.
In Nina Simone: Four Women, a quartet of amazing voices will fill the stage. Directed by Gerry McIntyre (Broadway: Once on This Island, Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat; Off-Broadway: Spamilton; BTG: Godspell, A Chorus Line, Oklahoma!) and featuring Tony and Grammy Award nominee Valisia LeKae (Broadway: Motown the Musical, The Book of Mormon, 110 in the Shade; BTG: Rock & Roll Man) as Nina Simone, this production will run from August 13 through September 5 outside in the courtyard at Berkshire Theatre Festival in Stockbridge.