AJ Morales, senior musical theatre major portraying Jesus, during the cast of Godspell’s final dress rehearsal, Wednesday on UCF Theatre’s main stage.
Kathleen Moore
Set against a backdrop of abandoned playgrounds and urban landscapes, UCF Theatre’s production of Godspell brings a high-energy exploration of friendship and loyalty to the university’s main stage.
After six weeks of nearly nonstop preparation, Godspell has opened on UCF’s main stage for its two-weekend run.
Known for its open-ended setting and reliance on ensemble trust, Godspell offers theater companies broad creative freedom. For Tim Brown, associate professor of theater design and technology, that flexibility drove the visual direction of UCF’s production.
“This show can kind of take place anywhere,” Brown said. “It doesn’t even state where the show takes place in the script.”
Featured billboard set piece set for the opening number of UCF Theatre’s Godspell on the main stage Wednesday.
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To match that open framework, the creative team designed an urban playground setting featuring a jungle gym, floor painted to mimic sidewalk chalk and a layered billboard that interacts with dynamic lighting arrangements to tell individual stories within the script.
“Godspell is all about building community,” Michael David Jablonski, director of Godspell, said. “It uses the gospel as a convention to have a bunch of humans learn to play together, grow together and they build this community together through the show.”
Out of the thousands of productions that Jablonski could have chosen, he said, Godspell in particular holds a special place in his heart from his early theatre career.
“I auditioned for a production they were doing at the University of Buffalo, and it happened to be Godspell,” Jablonski said.
At the time, Jablonski said he was a math major who ran track for the university and casually loved theatre.
“Ended up changing my major from math,” Jablonski said. “I graduated with a BA in theatre and dance.”
UCF Theatre’s cast of Godspell performs the scene “Turn the Other Cheek” at the final dress rehearsal on the UCF main stage theatre on Wednesday.
Kathleen Moore
For Jablonski, the stars aligned with what he wanted to accomplish in his fourth year as coordinator of musical theatre at UCF.
“I was like, wait a second, I’m talking about community,” Jablonski said. “It’s important to us here; I’ve always wanted to do the show again, and it was a sign.”
With Godspell, Jablonski also expressed the desire for the actors to feel like they were a part of the creative process beyond the stage. He said he wanted his actors to feel like they had ownership over the production as well.
“We worked in tandem to really develop a production that feels like ours,” AJ Morales, who portrayed Jesus, said. “There’s a mutual trust in him with us, and us with him.”
Morales attributes the bonds he made to the success of the show’s objectives.
“Seeing how those relationships and friendships have strengthened from the beginning of the show to now is something that you don’t get to experience on a regular basis,” Morales, senior musical theatre major, said.
Godspell will run through Oct. 25. Tickets are available UCF’s Arts and Humanities website.