Ken Davenport Wants YOU to Produce Godspell on Broadway!

So you wanna be a producer, eh kid? All you have to do is break open that piggy bank!

In an unprecedented initiative, producer Ken Davenport is opening up investment in the 40th anniversary production of Stephen Schwartz’s Godspell to the theater-loving public. This is the first time the crowd-funded—or, as Davenport prefers, community-funded—model is being applied to theater. Davenport tells Broadway.com he's been planning on trying this producing method for years, but was waiting for the right project to come along.

“I was already planning on doing Godspell,” says Davenport, who had announced plans last December to mount the show during the 2010-2011 season, “and I was talking to Stephen Schwartz about his early inspirations. He said ‘It’s about a community of people coming together,’ and I knew this was the show.”

Investors and theater lovers alike are invited to come on board as producers of this revival, the show's first on Broadway. Not only will these producers become official investors in the show, but as with any other Broadway show, the names of those who made it possible will be displayed outside the theater. The minimum investment is $1,000; to find out more, go to www.peopleofgodspell.com.

The endeavor—and getting the legal building blocks in place has certainly been an endeavor—has been a labor of love for Davenport. “Every project is about making sure the industry that I know and love and will work in for the rest of my life not only survives, but thrives,” he says.

Davenport is now aiming to open Godspell on Broadway in the spring/summer of 2011, directed by Daniel Goldstein, who helmed a 2006 mounting of the show at the Paper Mill Playhouse. Goldstein had been announced as the director of a production that was slated for Broadway's Ethel Barrymore Theatre in September 2008 starring Gavin Creel and Diana DeGarmo; that mounting of the show was scrapped.

The revival will mark the first Broadway production of the musical since its original run transferred from off-Broadway to Broadway, closing at the Ambassador Theatre on September 4, 1977 after 527 performances. A 1973 feature film version starred Victor Garber as Jesus, who headlined the legendary Toronto production alongside Eugene Levy, Andrea Martin, Gilda Radner, Dave Thomas and Martin Short. The show's signature song "Day By Day" reached #13 on the Billboard Top 100 list.