I'm often asked why, with the whole wide world of musical theater to choose from, I selected Godspell, a show with ostensibly little plot, no scene changes and a vocal score as complicated to learn as anything Broadway has to offer. Jokingly, my response is often that this has been FYP's required penance for mounting its production of Mel Brook's The Producers last fall. Certainly it is hard to imagine a more different show to round out this year's theatrical season.

In reality though, the process that led me to fall in love with this show and ultimately to its performance here for you tonight began four years ago, when I myself was a first year and found myself sitting on the steps of the Rotunda late at night being welcomed into an organization that would become my home and produce some of my very best friends in the world. As a part of the cast of FYP's The Music Man in the fall of 2011, what immediately struck me about this group is the love and connection that exists between all of its members. In other words I was struck by the incredible community that I was quickly becoming a part of. As anyone in the cast will tell you, community is something that is very important to me. In fact it is entirely what Godspell is about. Its messages of love and kindness slowly bind its characters together into one cohesive whole where once few ties existed between them. By the end of the show the community is shown to be truly stronger than any one individual or just the sum of its parts. It is something altogether more powerful. At its core, this is a message that I believe that deeply resonated with me when I first saw this show close to four years ago.

Not only did it resonate with me personally, but it resonated with me as a powerful reflection of everything that I had come to understand FYP stood for. In many ways this show is FYP. When FYP was founded more than 30 years ago one of its first shows was Godspell. Since then it has been performed there more times, and this run will mark its fifth production. I have to believe that we keep coming back to it because we recognize something in ourselves on that stage. We are all of us at times drifting through life on our own paths, but when we stop for a moment and come together we can make something beautiful and that is what FYP, indeed what theater is all about. So tonight we invite you to come on this wonderful journey with us and to become a part of our loving community if only for a little while. Know what we will always welcome you with open arms. Now sit back, relax and prepare ye to enjoy the show!