2001 School Magazine

44 . godspell

Godspell : the 200, BGGS/BGS Musical

For the past six years we have combined with the Anglican Church Grammar School to put on a major musical at Churchie. This year we decided to invite the Boys Grammar School to participate in a home- grown production. The response was very good and the standards at the auditions high. So many of the people we saw were able to act and sing the major roles that we created extra soloists and formed a group of pit singers to augment the chorus Then we all went to work Mr Paul Holley, as Musical Directo, trained all the singers and organised the band, with the help of Mr Elliott Dalgleish from BGS. My vision for the

production was to have the band behind a scrim at the back of the stage and somehow Mr Holley fitted all the equipment, himself as conductor (and at one point, God) and the eleven pit singers into a very small space The other performers were divided into groups. I took on Jesus and the Apostles; Ms Kern Mecklem and Mrs Trish Rhodes told some of the stories through an Aussie barbecue; Miss Katrina Cain extended her Theatredancers to act out more of the teachings and Mrs Sybil Edwards used a group of Orange People for her section

Rehearsals in all areas were scheduled for four weeks simultaneously in venues around the School. The last two weeks were spent putting it all together In a way it was a concert version of Godspelllinked together by Jesus, played by Tom Wensley and the core group of Apostles, who were also soloists - Jessica Campbell, Georgina Horsburgh, Georgina ParkeL Chris Denman, Joey Ginoes and Sam Litster. They were present at all times watching the entertainment as they sunned themselves at the beach As recent fashion has taken us back to the 70s and is popular with those trendies amongst us, I wanted to take advantage of this interest while extending our students' knowledge of the decade. Research was done by Mrs Robin Farr and Mrs Lynette Seckold and the events and culture of that era became our frame of reference. This provided more symbols to enrich the bible stories and necessitated a variety of props for visual reminders. Luckily Mrs Lyndsay Basford and Mrs Harmony Lentz took over this area and managed to find items to back up our ideas. We all had fun rewording the text using 70s allusions and making the messages clearer for the audience

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