{"id":138313,"date":"2025-09-07T01:17:08","date_gmt":"2025-09-07T01:17:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/138313\/"},"modified":"2025-09-07T01:17:08","modified_gmt":"2025-09-07T01:17:08","slug":"eugene-levy-martin-short-on-godspell-doc-you-had-to-be-there","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/138313\/","title":{"rendered":"Eugene Levy, Martin Short on ‘Godspell’ Doc ‘You Had to Be There’"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n\tWould comedy be the same without the 1972 Toronto production of \u201cGodspell<\/a>\u201c? <\/p>\n

\n\tSo many of the performers who turned \u201cSCTV\u201d and \u201cSaturday Night Live\u201d into cultural phenomenons in the \u201970s and \u201980s and later cooked up Emmy-winning sitcoms like \u201cOnly Murders in the Building\u201d and \u201cSchitt\u2019s Creek,\u201d got their start doing a musical version of the Book of Matthew at the Royal Alexandra\u00a0Theatre. The list of actors playing Jesus and his disciples includes Martin Short<\/a>, Eugene Levy<\/a>, Gilda Radner, Victor Garber, Andrea Martin and Dave Thomas, plus musical director Paul Shaffer, all of whom would go on to have renowned careers on stage and screen. The show and its legacy are the subject of \u201cYou Had to Be There: How the Toronto Godspell Ignited the Comedy Revolution,\u00a0Spread Love & Overalls, and\u00a0Created a Community That Changed the World (In a Canadian Kind of Way),\u201d a new documentary that premiered, fittingly enough, at the Toronto Film Festival<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\n\tAll of the surviving cast members, many of whom remain friends and collaborators were happy to reminisce about \u201cGodspell,\u201d but Nick Davis, the film\u2019s director, faced another problem. There was barely any surviving footage of the show, except for a primitive audio recording made by Short. But the filmmaker says the lack of archival material improved the finished product, which relies on those tapes, interviews with the actors and animated depictions of their memories. <\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cIt feeds the myth,\u201d says Davis. \u201cIf we had footage of Loch Ness Monster, it wouldn\u2019t be the Loch Ness Monster.\u201d <\/p>\n

\n\tAhead of the film\u2019s Toronto premiere, two of the figures who made \u201cGodspell\u201d so mythic, Martin Short and Eugene Levy, sat down with Variety to talk about their origin story and the impact the musical\u2019s 14-month run had on shaping five decades of comedy history.<\/p>\n

\t\tWhat did you think when Nick Davis approached you about making a documentary about your 1972 production of \u201cGodspell\u201d?\t<\/p>\n

\n\tEugene Levy: Well, the first thing that I thought of was there wasn\u2019t a whole lot of footage that was shot back in 1972. So how is this going to work? <\/p>\n

\n\tMartin Short: I thought same thing \u2014 there\u2019s no footage. I understood that it was a fascinating story. Through the years, when I would tell people about \u201cGodspell\u201d Toronto, and all those people that were in it, like Paul Shaffer and Gilda and Andrea, they were always fascinated by it. And people were always fascinated by that era in Toronto where all these people were just waiting to be found, like John Candy and Danny Aykroyd.<\/p>\n

\t\tThere was an audio recording that was made of one performance. Why did you tape the show Marty?\t<\/p>\n

\n\tShort: Why did I do it? Why am I in show business? I mean, I was that kid who used to tape imaginary albums. I taped everything. I taped my siblings and I doing bits or my brother playing the piano and my sister singing.<\/p>\n

\n\tLevy: Marty taped people under the Christmas dinner table. He taped his whole life. <\/p>\n

\t\tWhen you were doing this musical did you feel like you were doing something really special? Did it seem mythic?\t<\/p>\n

\n\tLevy: No, the great thing about \u201cGodspell\u201d was it was the first professional job that we all had. We couldn\u2019t really believe we got it. It marked the beginning of our careers and our lives in show business. This documentary is certainly exciting for us, because it\u2019s like a narrated home movie of our beginnings. We made friends with some very talented, lovely people, and that same group of friends, 50 some odd years later, are still the same group of friends. It was a magical time. I mean, we\u2019ve spent years telling \u201cGodspell\u201d stories every time we\u2019re together.<\/p>\n

\n\tShort: We couldn\u2019t believe we didn\u2019t have to do homework or study for an exam. We were getting paid. We were having a riot. The show was fabulous. It was a thing that rarely happens in show business. \u201cSchitt\u2019s Creek\u201d is an example of it, where all the stars line up, and it\u2019s an actual home run. You\u2019re good in it. The show\u2019s great. The people you\u2019re working with are great. You love going to work. And then we\u2019d go to The Pilot and discuss what had happened that night on stage and drink beer. But there was no perspective on it. No one was sitting back and saying, \u201cOh my god, we\u2019re historic,\u201d you know? As we talk about in the documentary, later on, Gilda and I called Paul when he moved to New York, and he said, \u201cI think you guys are just as good as anyone here.\u201d We didn\u2019t believe him.<\/p>\n

\n\tLevy: The show itself was kind of magical, because literally every performance got a standing ovation. And it became so popular that we kind of became local celebrities because our names were always appearing in the paper.<\/p>\n

\t\tThere were so many great comedians coming out of Toronto in the 1970s. What was it about the city and its scene that helped launch so many careers?\t<\/p>\n

\n\tLevy: Toronto was a hotbed for theater in the early 70s. There were a lot of local productions. I think the first time I met or encountered John Candy was in a show called \u201cThe Stag King.\u201d We went on an off-night of \u201cGodspell,\u201d and John really stood out as this kid up there who\u2019s got some charisma. There was a lot going on. But I don\u2019t think we looked at it as the Paris of the 20s or something. There was work available and a lot of talent floating around.<\/p>\n

\t\tWere there things about that experience of doing \u201cGodspell\u201d that shaped you as performers?\t<\/p>\n

\n\tShort: It\u2019s the first experience I had of doing eight shows a week, week after week after week after week after week. So right away, you\u2019re learning a kind of discipline. You\u2019re learning what you must do, what you can\u2019t do if you want to be able to show up every night. Mostly, I remember it being so much fun. I have all these tapes of us hanging out together at 2:30 in the morning and what are we talking about? \u201cGodspell.\u201d How that night\u2019s show went and what we can do tomorrow to make the next one better.<\/p>\n

\n\tLevy: It was great for people just starting out in their careers, because the premise of \u201cGodspell\u201d was they didn\u2019t want polished performers. It was supposed to be kind of a ragtag band of, you know, hippies and kids that were just, you know, putting on a show. <\/p>\n

\t\tGilda Radner clearly impacted everyone who worked with her or saw her perform. What made her so dynamic on stage? \t<\/p>\n

\n\tShort: She was just a unique personality. I don\u2019t think any of us had quite met someone like Gilda, who was so funny and loose and eccentric and just original. Everything from her purse to her hair was original and funny, really funny. And she loved to laugh.<\/p>\n

\n\tLevy: There was no way in the world that Gilda could bomb in a scene, because she would somehow find a way by just being herself to get out of it and the audience always loved her.<\/p>\n

\t\tThere\u2019s a great scene in the end of the documentary where all the surviving cast members reunite in an apartment to reminisce and sing the songs from \u201cGodspell.\u201d What was that like to film?\t<\/p>\n

\n\tShort: It was fabulous. When we got there, we had mics put on us, and we quickly forgot they were on us. So there was a great deal of uncensored, real conversation and behavior. It was Richard Rogers\u2019 grandson\u2019s apartment and the piano had belonged to Richard Rogers. And the guy who owned the apartment, said to Nick Davis, \u201cjust make sure no one pounds the piano,\u201d and Paul said, \u201cHave you heard me play? All I do is slam the piano.\u201d<\/p>\n

\t\tIt seems unlikely that so many people in this cast would go on to have long and distinguished careers in the toughest business in the world. Why do you think that happened?\t<\/p>\n

\n\tShort: In show business, you have to have talent and you have to have endurance. You also need to have luck. Many years ago, I saw the pilot for \u201cFriends.\u201d They showed it after a taping of \u201cSNL,\u201d and I was totally blown away. Everyone was great. Everyone was cast perfectly. The characters were already realized, and the script was hilarious. Those things rarely happen. When \u201cSecond City\u201d came to town, it hired most of the \u201cGodspell\u201d cast, and that became the new hot vehicle to be in. And it was connected to Chicago, so if Lorne Michaels was going to cast a new variety show at 11:30, he came and saw \u201cSecond City\u201d in Toronto. The timing was great. Going back to the \u201cFriends\u201d analogy, if that pilot hadn\u2019t been picked up, I don\u2019t know if Jennifer [Aniston] or Matt [LeBlanc] or everyone else would have found such a great showcase for their talents.<\/p>\n

\n\tLevy: As Marty said, we were lucky. If \u201cGodspell\u201d didn\u2019t come to Toronto, and \u201cSecond City\u201d didn\u2019t open up in Toronto, who knows whether we would have all ended up in show business. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Would comedy be the same without the 1972 Toronto production of \u201cGodspell\u201c? So many of the performers who…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":138314,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[57],"tags":[236,88,86389,86390,50988,46687],"class_list":["post-138313","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-celebrities","tag-celebrities","tag-entertainment","tag-eugene-levy","tag-godspell","tag-martin-short","tag-toronto-film-festival"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/138313","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=138313"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/138313\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/138314"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=138313"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=138313"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=138313"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}