By Jennifer R Jones | Posted on June 13, 2012 3:03 AM
The first post-Tony Award casualty, Godspell has announced that it will be concluding its run on June 24. The cast of the energetic Broadway revival performed on the Tony Awards telecast on June 10, but presumably the television exposure was not enough to boost ticket sales. The insertion of Corbin Bleu into the production and the failure to get any Tony nominations didn't help, so the show went into the Tony's against the wind.
When the production closes, it will have played nearly 300 performances at the Circle in the Square Theatre. Although the New Testament-based musical, featuring songs by Stephen Schwartz (Wicked), is leaving Broadway, Godspell will soon hit the road in 2013 for a U.S. national tour.
This production of Godspell was Ken Davenport's grand experiment that received its funding from over 100 separate small investors, a true example of crowd-funding. It's been nearly 40 years since Godspell made its ground-breaking debut on Broadway, so it was fitting that it would come back to Broadway in a revolutionary way. No word yet on whether the production broke even, but the very thought of that misses the point.
