Our young people stage Godspell

Visit the Godspell pages, including photos

Ripon, 18 February 2008 – The young people of Holy Trinity Church Ripon are taking to the stage for their third production in six years with the hit musical Godspell , hoping for sell-out dates once again on 28 and 29 February and 1 March. Proceeds will go to a variety of UK and overseas projects supported by the church.

One of the longest-ever off-Broadway productions, it ran for 5 years before reaching Broadway itself, totalling 2,600 performances between 1971 and 1977. The musical is based on the Gospel of Matthew, re-enacting parables and scenes from the life of Jesus in an emotional and energetic way. Originally conceived by Jean-Michael Tebelak as part of his Carnegie Mellon master's degree, with fellow students making up much of the cast, the show became an immediate hit, playing most major US cities between 1971 and 1973. Several songs were chart hits, the most successful being Day by Day .

oly Trinity's cast is made up of ten young people within the church congregation, aged from 14 to 18, supported by a chorus of a further ten aged ten to 15. The part of Jesus is played by David Crow, and that of John/Judas by Robbie Mortimer. Many of the cast and chorus also performed in the church's 2004 production of Let My People Go, written by the team, a sequel to Joseph and the Amazing Technicolour Dreamcoat ( which they also staged in 2001).