Miami Student

Issue date: 11/10/09 Section: Campus

Members of Stage Left rehearse for the Godspell play this week. The play will premiere Thursday.

Starting Thursday and running three days, the student organization Stage Left will be performing Godspell, a 1970 musical written by Stephen Schwartz and John-Michael Tebelak.

"It's more of a modernized story of the gospel of Matthew," said senior Patrick Giblin, who plays the character of Herb. "There are no definitive characters from the gospel. I am sort of the class clown, the Jim Carrey of the play."

Senior Scott Wiley, president of Stage Left, said, "Judas and Jesus are the only true set characters that are historical, actual biblical characters."

Wiley, who plays the role of Judas, described the size of the production.

"There are 10 people in the cast itself," Wiley said. "Then we have our director, music director, choreographer, tech-manager and then six or seven crew members."

Godspell, which was initially created by students as a project, has become a successful yet controversial musical. Giblin commented on the controversies surrounding the play.

"There are several," Giblin said. "One, Jesus is depicted as a clown in some productions, but in our production, we give him a
superman logo."

Giblin said the lack of Jesus' resurrection from the story is also controversial, but the production sticks to this aspect of the story.

"Nothing in the play will cause a stir," Giblin said. "It's not overtly religious, not preachy - there are a lot of good messages in there, rooted in Christianity. Basically, it's a good musical in that it's not preachy."

Stage Left has been working on the production of Godspell for more than two months, according to Wiley.

"We rehearsed about three times a week, until now," Wiley said. "Now we have them pretty much every day."

Stage Left has been in existence for more than 10 years. The organization exists today as an opportunity for non-theater majors to learn about the different aspects of the stage. Both Wiley and Giblin have been members of Stage Left since their first year at Miami. Giblin is now the current webmaster for the organization and Wiley moved up the ranks to become president.

"Stage Left has been my main focus in college," Wiley said. "It involves a lot of work, but I'm passionate about it."

The play will be shown at 8 p.m. Nov. 12 to 14 at the Oxford Community Arts Center. Tickets can be obtained free of charge through the Shriver Center Box Office.

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