New opera house show to launch this weekend

Ashley Hunter
ECB Publishing, Inc.

This evening, the newest production of the Monticello Opera House will grace the stage.
Godspell, a musical that is inspired by the parables in the Bible's Gospel of Matthew, will be coming to the Monticello Opera House tonight, Friday, Feb. 21, at 8 p.m., and remaining until its final showing on Sunday, March 8.
While the cast will fill the stage's spotlight, working behind the scenes to organize and produce the show is Jacob Arnett, Godspell's director.
Arnett has been directing shows in Quincy, Tallahassee and Monticello for six years, and Monticello Opera House patrons may recognize Arnett's name due to his recent work with the opera house's dazzling productions of A Chorus Line and The Hunchback of Notre Dame - shows that Arnett either co-directed or choreographed.
With a background in dance, choir and band, Arnett is a strong presence in the theater-world that swirls around the Tallahassee area.
Arnett's resume of performing arts involves several dance styles, including ballet, tap and jazz, as well as a history in band and choir.
All of those experience factors form a strong stage presence, and Arnett brings a bit of each into his direction of Godspell, but it isn't Arnett's background in theater, dance and the performing arts that makes his show-legacy so powerful – it is the personal history that Arnett has with this particular production.
As a child, Jacob Arnett says that he grew up listening to the music and hearing the story told within the songs of Godspell, as his parents were fans of the musical production.
“I grew up with the soundtrack playing in my mind,” says Arnett. “The songs are beautiful – they are all based on church hymns and growing up through the church, I recognized the hymns, but it was with a different style and a different life.”
Ultimately, Arnett says, his parents' interest in Godspell (as well as Grease and Joseph and the Technicolor Dream Coat) that helped inspire his own future interest in performing arts and the world of stage productions – an interest that has led him to his current role of director.
“I've always been interested in performance art, and what kind of stories we can tell through movement, sound and acting,” says Arnett.
While Godspell is musically-powerful with its rock-style sounds, Arnett is quick to turn his audience's eye to the equally powerful story that the musical portrays within its sounds.
“What really captured the show for me, especially while producing it, is telling the story of how we build a community as humans.”
The show, Arnett says, gently leads the audience into questioning what their fellow man means to them, which has greatly inspired him.
“I feel like that's a message that a lot of people need to hear – to know that there is still this effort in the world of people trying to connect to one another,” adds Arnett. “Ultimately, it is a show about community, how we make relations with each other and what are the things that we should do to better our lives and our world.”
Godspell, he goes on to say, tells the stories that Jesus told – the parables – and the values Jesus taught, all while retelling them for a modern audience with modern problems.
“It is a show about Jesus – but at the same time, it's not a show about Jesus at all.”
First performed in the early 1970s, Godspell has continued to circulate and be told again and again; for the fans of the original 1970s production, Arnett says that today's version of Godspell may be a little different than what they are used to.
“The original musical had a hippie-vibe,” says Arnett, adding that it definitely fits with a theme of flower-child peace; but in the 2010s, the musical underwent a revival in order to bring a more modern feel to the dated music. Regardless, Arnett says his opera house production will keep the history of Godspell in mind even while telling the revived tale.
“We are still trying to keep that hippie energy alive,” he remarks.
The Monticello Opera House's Godspell, Arnett adds, will come with a lot of fun acting, goofy comedy, dancing, and vaudeville-style entertainment.
“There's a lot of different techniques put into telling the story that we are trying to tell,” Arnett says.
Bringing a very modern and musically-charged production to the 130-year-old opera house, however, does come with its unique set of challenges.
“One of the things that I love about the Monticello Opera House is how acoustically it is built,” says Arnett. “This stage has been kept in mind for the telling of music – it's an opera house, it was designed to really project music through the house.”
While that is a marvelous gift, Arnett says that it also comes with its trials; music and sound carry very loudly in the opera house, and Arnett says he and his production team have had to be mindful to not 'blast' their audience with Godspell's rock-style music.
“We have had to balance the music with the telling of the story so that the music isn't the only thing that people are interested in and hear,” says Arnett.
Another interesting detail that has gone into the production, Arnett says, is that the majority of his cast lives in the Tallahassee area.
“What does it mean that all of us from Tallahassee are coming in and telling our story in a different community?” Arnett asks. In addition to the traveling between the two towns, Arnett says that his cast don't have the benefit of knowing their audience as personally as they would if performing in their own city; but he doesn't consider that to be a setback for Godspell. Instead, it is a living example of what he feels the musical embodies.
“I think that kind of goes into what the story is trying to tell. We are all here for each other, we are all one big community, even if we live in very different worlds,” says Arnett.
When the stage curtains open tonight at 8 p.m., Arnett says he hopes his audience is prepared for a good time, and that by the end of the show, they have seen a satisfying production.
But he also has larger hopes for the audience of Godspell.
“I hope they come away with a sense of hope that they can be there for someone. Maybe they become inspired to reach out to a friend they have lost contact with, or a family member that they haven't heard from in a while,” says Arnett. “Just, be there for other people.”
While Godspell has been taking much of Arnett's time, when he isn't directing the upcoming musical, he is a teacher at Leon High School, where he teaches math, not music.
Arnett describes his passion for dance, theater and music as a “full-time hobby” that keeps him busy at the end of each workday – and he is already looking towards the future.
Those who enjoy Arnett's directing of Godspell might be interested to learn that in the upcoming months, Arnett will be directing All Shook Up at the Quincy Theatre. This production, also a comedy, will be an “Elvis Jukebox Musical,” according to Arnett, which he further describes as “Footloose, but set to Elvis music.”
All Shook Up will open in Mid-April.
For showtimes and dates, as well as to purchase tickets, visit monticellooperahouse.org.