Andrew Martin
The Off-Broadway hit musical Godspell emerged as a worldwide cultural phenomenon in 1972 when, just over a year after its award-winning emergence on stages around the world and with the Top 20 Billboard hit "Day by Day," Columbia Pictures decided to film and release it on the silver screen across the globe. In [this book], film historian Andrew Martin has captured every step of the show's journey, from school play to an indelible part of modern culture, and depicts in glowing detail all the highs...and lows...of a production that will always live on in the hearts and minds of all who watch and enjoy.
Notwithstanding the author's overestimation of Godspell's lasting impact, this is still an interesting read. I bought it at the same time as the far-superior The Godspell Experience and I think this smaller book suffered in the comparison between the two. My biggest "complaint" would be how the author had to stretch the material to make it book-length. For instance, instead of listing the movie's production credits in an appendix, he put it in paragraph form: "They hired so-and-so to do this job and found such-and-such to fulfill these duties." And all without adding any information beyond the names and job positions. Other than that, the cast member quotes derived from Martin's interviews were revealing and sometimes even heartwarming.
First line: The weather was warm and seasonable on the evening of May 17, 1971, and the small cul-de-sac of Commerce Street, in the western part of New York's Greenwich Village, had become suffused with the energy of a brand-new musical hit Off-Broadway, known as Godspell.
Page 56/Sentence 5: In light of the fact that different portions of New York would be the easel upon which the cast and crew would ultimately paint the picture (pardon the pun), it made perfect sense in the long run.
Last line: Ergo, as guessed, it was all for the best.
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