Back in the ‘70s there was this hippie musical Godspell that ran for over a year in Toronto. The cast was mainly unknown at the time but wouldn’t stay that way for long. Martin Short, Eugene Levy, Gilda Radner, Andrea Martin, Dave Thomas, Victor Garber, Jayne Eastwood, Rudy Webb, and future Letterman bandleader Paul Shaffer were all in on the act.
The story has been told bit by bit but never all in one place. Director Nick Davis has put it all together under a title that would never fit on a theatre marquee:
“You Had to be There: How the Toronto Godspell Ignited the Comedy Revolution, Spread Love & Overalls, and Created a Community that Changed the World (in a Canadian Kind of Way).” Look for it in limited theatrical runs now and next month, including three screenings in October at the Hot Docs in Toronto. CBC will also be showing it by the end of the year.
Davis has previously written and directed a couple of terrific sports documentaries, including a 30 for 30 series on the 1986 New York Mets. He talks about the challenge of re-creating one of the most important performances in Toronto stage history without really having any actual footage to show. Back in 1972-73, none of us had phones to capture images in a theatre — although Short did set up his trusty cassette tape recorder during a performance or two.
Davis and the producers, including Judd Apatow, did commission animated sequences to fill in some of the gaps. And there is a spec of actual performance footage that even the surviving cast members are delighted to see.
It is curious how such a Canadian story had been told mainly by Americans — a nice, neighbourly gesture for our times don’t you think?
advertisement
I really enjoyed my conversation with Nick Davis and hope you will as well. To listen in simply click on the white arrow in the blue dot, above.
