Godspell brings Gospel of Matthew to Steinbach

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This article was published 29/02/2024 (494 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Steinbach Arts Council is bringing back their musicals and it’s doing so with their first production since the pandemic with Godspell.

“The pandemic caused a little bit of a disruption. We often would schedule a community musical annually and because of the pandemic we had to stop so now we’ve decided it’s time to start again. So we’re bringing that community of people who loved to contribute to that production aspect back to the theatre,” said SAC executive director and musical director David Klassen.

“We chose this musical because it has such a strong message of community and we thought it would be really applicable. It’s been on my list of shows that I’ve dreamed of producing with the Steinbach Arts Council for quite some time. Now that we’re restoring the community musical as part of our series it felt like a good fit. It was a nice small cast and the message was applicable for the time and we felt it would be a great fit.”

Although Godspell takes place in the 1970s, Klassen said the musical has been adapted for a Steinbach audience.

“The script and the music are the same. The 1970s movie is really heavy on the 1970s. There’s a lot of references that may or may not make sense in today’s society so we’ve just adapted it made it local and made it accessible to all of the people that might be experiencing it in our community,” said Klassen.

The Gospel of Matthew is the first book of the New Testament and one of the three synoptic gospels. It tells how Jesus comes to the Jews but is rejected by them and how, after his resurrection, he sends the disciples to the gentiles instead.

The musical sees eight non-biblical characters who, alongside Jesus and John the Baptist/Judas, sing and act out the parables found in the Gospel of Matthew.

Cole Recksiedler plays Jesus and Chris Winkler plays John the Baptist/Judas.

“Cole is an extremely expressive and high energy character. It’s a pleasure to work with him on stage,” said Klassen. “He’s full of great energy, he’s expressive, he captures the playful and gentile nature of the character beautifully.

“Chris is also extremely strong. He’s got a great command on stage and he’s able to create a lot of conflict within the character and within the play itself. It’s a really nice juxtaposition with that gentile nurturing spirit that just wants to guide people along and that opposition of challenging and opposing some of the ideas that come to the community as a whole.”

Godspell will run from Feb. 29 to March 2. Curtain rises at 7:30 p.m. at the Steinbach Regional Secondary School Theatre in Steinbach. Tickets are $25 for adults and seniors and $15 for students. Visit www.steinbacharts.ca to purchase tickets.