GODSPELL– Broadway
by Stephen Schwartz & John Michael Tebalak
Circle in the Square
Sets: David Korins
Costumes: Miranda Hoffman
Lights: David Weiner
“Skeptics be damned: “Godspell” is a joyously noisy romp that goes off like an extra-long string of firecrackers. It took 34 years for Stephen Schwartz’s once-ubiquitous rock musical, in which the gospel according to St. Matthew is enacted as a circuslike vaudeville turn, to make it back to Broadway, and by all rights the results should have been dated beyond hope of resuscitation. But Daniel Goldstein, the director of this revival, has blown all the dust off “Godspell,” and the result is not a stale exercise in boomer nostalgia à la “Hair” but a fizzy, family-friendly show that deserves to run…well, forever. ”
More Press
Happily, this revival, the first ever on Broadway, strikes just the right tone. The young, multicultural cast is extravagantly talented, but director Daniel Goldstein sustains a relaxed, let's-put-on-show vibe.
– Elysa Gardner, USA Today
Daniel Goldstein's crisply paced direction makes good use of the theatre in the round adding some nice surprises.
– Roma Torre NY1
Multiple parts, quick sketches, jumping into the aisles, the use of props such as ladders, newspapers and cell phones — not to mention the need to clean the stage afterward — and the fact that the orchestra's members are scattered across the theater — would have doomed most creative teams. This one purrs. Have they had divine intervention?
– Mark Kennedy, Associated Press
This production, which has been sparklingly directed by Daniel Goldstein, achieves the kind of warmly communal harmony the recent revival of Hair so mechanically sought. Goldstein, who got his start with Godspell at the Paper Mill Playhouse five years ago, has seen to it there's never a dull or empty moment. Invention is ripe. The honesty, charm, and appeal everyone displays shows that, sometimes at least, theatregoers' prayers are indeed answered.
– Matthew Murray, Talkin Broadway