The 10-member cast included Martin Short, Eugene Levy, Dave Thomas and Valda Aviks as well as Victor Garber.TIFF/Supplied
For more than 50 years, people have talked about the hit 1972 Toronto production of the clowning hippie musical Godspell in revered tones. The play gobsmacked audiences for more than a year, first at the Royal Alexandra Theatre, then at the Bayview Playhouse.
Because of the post-Godspell success of some of the cast members, the production has taken on mythic proportions. Words could not describe it, which is why the new documentary on the Toronto version of Godspell is called You Had to Be There: How the Toronto Godspell Ignited the Comedy Revolution…
The film, directed by Nick Davis, makes its world premiere at the Toronto International Film Festival on Saturday at the same Royal Alexandra Theatre where it played to packed houses for three months. It only moved to the smaller Bayview Playhouse, where it ran for nearly a year, because the Royal Alex was booked for another play.
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The story begins in the spring of 1972, when a casting call drew hundreds of singers, comedians and stage actors. Based on the Gospel According to Matthew, Godspell had already been a hit off-Broadway, and in Melbourne and London (where David Essex played Jesus in a cast that included Jeremy Irons).
“Anybody with any talent at all came,” recalled Paul Shaffer, who accompanied a pair of female friends on piano at the tryouts.
Later, Stephen Schwartz, who created Godspell with librettist John-Michael Tebelak, attended the final callback and selected the 10-member cast. Among the picks were Martin Short, Andrea Martin, Jayne Eastwood, Eugene Levy, Gilda Radner and, as Jesus, Victor Garber.
“I knew after the first rehearsal there was something very special about the cast,” Garber said, speaking on a video call with Shaffer, who was recruited to be the show’s keyboardist and music director. “I was surrounded by the most talented people I had ever known. I still feel that way.”
A still from Godspell, showing Victor Garber in striped pants.TIFF/Supplied
Globe and Mail theatre critic Herbert Whittaker, who attended a preview performance, felt the same. “Things are certainly starting to happen over at the Royal Alexandra Theatre,” he wrote before the June 1 opening night. His review a few days later was an unequivocal − “deluge of dazzlements” − thumbs up. Audiences were just as impressed.
“We had standing ovations and people were lining up to get in,” Garber remembered.
Garber didn’t stay long with the Toronto production. He was poached to play the lead in the 1973 film version of Godspell. “I found my Jesus,” the film’s director, David Greene, said after attending opening night.
After Godspell, many cast members joined the new Toronto troupe of the Second City improv comedy theatre and subsequently went on to the groundbreaking television sketch shows Saturday Night Live and Canada’s SCTV. In the same comedic universe were Dan Aykroyd, John Candy, Catherine O’Hara, Joe Flaherty and Dave Thomas (who joined the Godspell cast partway through its run).
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The idea for the documentary came to U.S. director-producer Davis after he read Short’s 2014 memoir I Must Say in 2017. The Godspell story (including Short’s romantic relationship with Radner) was a revelation.
“I’m not much a musical theatre guy, and it always baffled me that all these comedians had come from what I assumed was a sappy story about Jesus,” Davis told The Globe. “Could this have happened with Hair, Sweet Charity or some other musical of the era?”
The show prior to Godspell at the Royal Alex was a record-breaking year-long run of Hair with an all-Canadian cast. It was Hair’s success in Toronto that inspired a local production of Godspell, despite the fact that it had not played on Broadway yet.
“I think one could make a case that without Hair, which captured the so-called counterculture of the period, Godspell would probably have never existed,” said John Karastamatis, director of sales and marketing, Mirvish Productions, which brought Godspell to Toronto.
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Davis reached out to Short about making a Godspell documentary. “I invited him to lunch in New York, and I was quite nervous about asking him,” Davis said. “But three minutes into the meal he said, ‘I’ve talked to everybody, we think it’s a great idea, let’s eat.’”
Davis quickly got Judd Apatow to sign up as the doc’s executive producer. After CBC pre-acquired the Canadian rights, a few private investors came on board. Making the film, he realized it was no fluke that Godspell was such a comedic incubator.
“It was the conception that Jesus was a clown,” Davis said. “And there was a lot of tweaking after it arrived at the Royal Alex. They took it and made it funnier, which was inherent in Godspell.”
The production greatly affected careers. “It changed my life,” said Shaffer, well-known for his sidekick role with David Letterman on late-night television. “Before Godspell, I was playing topless bars on Yonge Street,” Shaffer said.
Garber, like Shaffer, moved to New York, got his green card and never left. “My dream was musical theatre on Broadway. Godspell changed the trajectory of my life.”
You Had to Be There screens at TIFF on Sept. 6, at the Royal Alexandra Theatre; Sept. 7, at the Scotiabank Theatre.
