Recalling acts of ‘Godspell’ and dodging the oppressive apartheid censors

As Daily Maverick’s Tony Jackman explained in his story Des & Dawn: The lives and times of an inseparable duo, the book Every Day Is an Opening Night is “a captivating and highly entertaining must-read about so much that has happened in South African theatre, music and the related politics of the decades from the 1960s to the present”.

Of the book, which was released after Dawn’s passing, Des Lindberg noted at the time:

“If this book achieves nothing else, I am determined that it will help me to sign off on our story in a way that does justice to the extraordinary leader, wife, mother, partner and lover Dawn was.

“I confess that the mere thought of performing without her by my side is, right now, unimaginable.”

This month marks the fiftieth anniversary of the ban of the musical they produced and staged, Godspell. Here is an extract of the book that relates the story.

Des and Dawn Lindberg in earlier times. (Photo: Facebook)

***

1973, Godspell

“Yes, It’s All For The Best”

Des: When Josh was three and Adam only three months old, we were granted the rights to produce John-Michael Tebelak and Stephen Schwartz’s hit musical Godspell.

We both had a gut feeling this could be the powerful vehicle we needed to break the racial log-jam in SA. We were determined to be the first company publicly to stage a major Broadway musical in SA with a multiracial cast.

A few months before, we had gone to the Alexander Theatre to see a PACT production of Arthur Miller’s play The Crucible, directed by Barney Simon. We were discomfited to see that Tabitha was played by a white actress blacked up.

Why?

A year before that we’d seen another PACT production, Othello, with a white actor in blackface in the lead role of the anguished and doomed nobleman.

Why? This couldn’t be justifiable or right.

We knew that South African stages should be peopled by hundreds of talented, charismatic and accomplished actors, singers and dancers of all colours. These absurd distortions deliberately deprived artistes of opportunities and only strengthened our resolve to find a way to bring about change based on merit and not race. Something was indeed rotten in the State of South African theatre.

Dawn: At the invitation of our Canadian-Rhodesian friend Maggie Brown, we flew to Salisbury (now Harare) to attend a performance of Godspell.

Rhodesian director-producer Adrian Stanley had evidently obtained the rights without difficulty because Rhodesia was not at the time regarded by the arts world as a racist regime or subject to any cultural boycott.

We were knocked out by the quality, the content and the possibilities of Godspell, which featured David Lewis and Trish Mckenna, both of whom within a year became our close friends, and integral to our South African productions.

Fired up by the possibilities we saw in Godspell as the perfect vehicle for change on South African stages, we decided to go for it.

Immediately on our return from Rhodesia we wrote to Shirley Bernstein, the rights-agent, in New York. Turned out she was the sister of the illustrious composer Leonard Bernstein. We think she was intrigued by these two young folksingers wanting to produce one of the musicals she represented.

Author John-Michael Tebelak readily said, “Yes, on condition I’m at the opening!”, but the musical director and composer, Stephen Schwartz, himself a protégé of Shirley’s brother Leonard, said “No, I will not allow my work to be produced in a fascist country.”

Des: However Shirley Bernstein shared John-Michael’s enthusiasm for the project, and sent us a rights agreement which defined conditions under which we would be allowed to produce the work.

We had applied for the rights on the basis that Godspell in South Africa would be produced by us with a multiracial cast and play to multiracial audiences. For us compliance with the cast promise was a sine qua non. 

The integrated-audience undertaking under SA laws of the time would, we knew too well, be much harder to fulfil. We would have to take advice and find a way to honour our pledge.

The rights contract we received stipulated that out of the cast of 10, at least three had to be actors of colour. John-Michael’s spontaneous pre-condition that he would have to be at the opening remained in the agreement. Stephen Schwartz reluctantly modified his stance: “So be it, but I will not travel to South Africa at all.”

Dawn: Our numerous South African journalist friends knew they were onto a big story. This musical would go head-on to challenge the apartheid laws that governed racial mixing in South Africa.

Our legal advisors were less encouraging, pointing out that as they saw it we would be in conflict with the Group Areas Act and the Separate Amenities Act. “Your production will break laws, and you will be prosecuted under those laws,” said one attorney.

But happenstance flung us a lifeline idea at just the right moment. Our old friend from the Edward Hotel, Fred Gottgens, had seen some pre-publicity in the press and phoned us. “Remember me? Your Durban promoter at the Causerie? If you’re looking for a theatre for Godspell, phone David Lewis of Holiday Inns. He’s building a new hotel and conference venue across the border in Lesotho. Maybe he’ll agree to host your show to put his hotel on the map and enable you to honour your contractual obligations.”

Des: David Lewis, chief of South Africa’s Holiday Inns, was a visionary, progressive and pragmatic businessman. His Holiday Inns in Botswana, Swaziland and Lesotho were entirely open to all races.

So we called him and told him we were planning to stage Godspell if a suitable venue could be found, where racial mixing on and off the stage would not present a problem.

To our delight our request for a meeting to outline our plans was received with lots of positive energy. David Lewis told us that exciting plans were under way at the Maseru Holiday Inn, over the border in the tiny land-locked mountain kingdom of Lesotho. His architects were already in the final stages of designing a multipurpose entertainment venue attached to the busy casino hotel.

We tabled our proposal, and he instantly saw mutual benefits for us and for his hotel and conference venture.

“I want you to meet our architects as soon as you can,” he said. “There may just be enough time to modify our plans and turn the new venue into a theatre. See our architects right away, and specify what you are going to need to make this work.”

We immediately arranged to meet them, and they were, dare I say, less than enthusiastic about the creative rethink they saw coming if they were to accommodate our theatrical production.

The plans they had already drawn were for a hall with a stage at one end. It was to be used for events, launches, weddings, banquets, conferences, and as an additional dining and catering area when the hotel was full.

With their blueprints in hand we went back to our own drawing board, and within a day returned with a narrative account of what we envisioned, and some rough sketches of floor levels, lighting bars, a foyer and kitchen attached.

David Lewis said, “Let’s do it.”

However when we bounced the idea off some colleagues in SA showbiz, an inevitable raising of eyebrows and shaking of heads ensued.

Percy Tucker, the founder of Computicket, cautioned us that marketing a show 350km from Joburg was going to be a challenge.

“How can you expect the public to drive for three or four hours to a theatre, and then pay to stay over in a hotel, before heading back home?” he asked one evening at a première of Taubie Kushlick’s Jacques Brel is Alive and Well, a show I was working on as sound designer when it relocated to the Chelsea in Hillbrow. We knew Percy was asking a good question!

Dawn: But fortune and David Lewis were on our side, and he insisted that we fly to London to see the smash-hit London production of Godspell.

Next day his secretary handed us the air-tickets. Godspell was running at the Aldwych Theatre off The Strand. David Essex starred as Jesus and a young Jeremy Irons was John the Baptist/Judas.

We met both these wonderful actors and the others in the cast several times in a pub at the back of the theatre after their performances and shared a pint or two in their company while telling them of our plans to produce the show.

We grasped the opportunity for our total immersion in London theatre with determination.

We saw Godspell a number of times during which Des fell in love with the dual roles of John the Baptist and Judas. We also saw several other West End productions.

Between shows we scoured the West End tailoring shops to source a second-hand tail-coat to be beribboned for the John the Baptist costume, not realising that the one we bought to bring back was monstrously heavy and made of pure wool. It proved hot as hell for Des to dance and sing costumed in this wintry garment night after night in the heat of the African summer.

We had to keep a hairdryer backstage throughout the 15 months of the initial run and tour, and he quickly learned to dry the tail-coat’s woolly armpits during the interval.

We also found the Superman T-shirt worn universally by the Jesus character in Godspell and bought four. Bits and pieces of wonderful fabrics were added to our luggage, from which I would design the rag-doll costumes for the rest of the motley characters in the play.

On our return from London, not being one ever to delay striking while an iron is hot, I called auditions for our production.

Within hours singers and dancers were pitching up at our St Patrick Road house to strut their stuff. The idea of being in a Broadway musical, and going “into exile” in Lesotho to perform it, was clearly appealing to a bevy of very talented young South African artistes.

Des: Auditions were held in the Soirée hall of our home.

After weeks of agonising, we meticulously selected our team of actors, singers, dancers and musicians.

Bruce Millar, an actor and singer with angelic blue eyes, was Jesus Cocky; Tlhotlhalemaje, well-known as an actor, singer and later a DJ on 702, known on radio and in the townships as “Two bull sittin’ down facin’ East” Graham Clarke, lithe, super-fit athletic dancer, as dance-captain in the cast, Trish McKenna, the minuscule elfin singer and tap-dancer from Rhodesia, Roz Monat, a singer, dancer and actress with fiery red hair Jenny Cantan, a bubbly, cheeky, joyful auburn-haired jazz singer Caryn Solomon, a young, sexy singer, actress and flaxen-haired bombshell, Ali Lerefolo, actor, singer and dancer from African Jazz and Variety, Harriet Matiwane, velvet-toned saxophone-voiced singer actress.

And me, Des, singer, and first-time dancer, with 17 left feet.

Hennie Bekker introduced us to a brilliant young musical director, Arthur Stead. He was a superb pianist. We appointed him on the turn.

Dawn directed, created the choreography, and designed the set and colourful rag-bag costumes.

Everyone’s feet were clad in original Converse takkies, and we all wore fat basketball knee-guards under pants, jeans and skirts which only somewhat succeeded in protecting joints from the incessant kneeling and knee-drops required by Dawn’s lively choreography.

45 years later we all still suffer from “Godspell knees”.

Dawn: The next problem we faced was where to hold the rehearsals in Johannesburg. In 1973 Apartheid was firing on all cylinders in SA.

None of the halls, theatres, schools or other public venues would agree to play host to our racially mixed band of players. They all claimed it was too risky in terms of the law.

So we decided to start rehearsals of the songs in the hall of our house around the piano, and then we moved outside onto the lawn in the spring sunshine for the dance numbers.

For five weeks we rehearsed daily on our front lawn till the cast were all berry-brown and it was impossible to categorise us racially by skin colour.

The mighty South African sun had blurred and almost erased our native chromatic differences. The only giveaway would have been, in the words of the song Des wrote years before, “The little white patch where the sun don’t go.”

The boys from KES over the road would hang over the balconies on their way to class, gawping at the sight of this bunch of young performers leaping and dancing and singing on the front lawn of the always vibrant and alternative Lindberg abode.

Des: Then suddenly, just before it was time to make the move to Maseru in Lesotho, we faced an oil embargo, the government imposed petrol restrictions on the country.

One could only fill up with petrol between dawn and dusk. We remembered Percy Tucker’s sober caution: Will people actually make the 350km journey from the Witwatersrand to Maseru across the border to watch a play about Jesus in the guise of a clown?

We were worried about this new fuel obstacle to travel, but elected to remain undaunted. Too much had gone into this production to consider cancelling or rescheduling.

So we packed our Kombi and trailer with props and costumes, and the cast shared cars to travel to the Holiday Inn in Maseru.

Our new adventure had begun!

Imagine our shock when we arrived at the new convention centre to find not much more than a steel shell on a building site. No raking of the auditorium floor. No seats. No dressing rooms. There was a stage. Dusty and cluttered with scaffolding, but a stage nonetheless.

But the architects were unapologetic about their failure to deliver the “theatre” as they had agreed and promised at our meetings. The auditorium floor was flat, and no attempt had been made to construct what we had sketched on our revised and approved plan for the venue.

So next morning I went into the town of Maseru and contracted with a carpentry firm there to construct the rostra for raked seating, and to install the wooden platforms in two days.

We moved in and started the final week of rehearsals in the half-completed building.

Amid the din of hammering, drilling and sawing, and with workmen swarming all around us, director Dawn managed to hold the focus and discipline of the cast and band, as only her youth infused with total passion and drive could achieve.

Dawn: As the opening night drew closer, and the noise and dust didn’t seem about to abate, most of the cast were coughing and sneezing, with dry throats. Our nerves became frayed and tempers often flared.

The drama and emotion of the symbolic crucifixion didn’t help, and I kept delaying this scene until the day before final dress rehearsal, and then demanded that all construction work stop and workers vacate the venue for us to have privacy for the highly charged moment when Des as Judas sprints down the aisle from the back of the theatre blowing a police whistle, and kneels to kiss and betray his leader and master.

The scene sapped the energy and stretched the emotions of the cast, and tears flowed. Drained and exhausted, we ended the rehearsal and I told everyone to rest.

The cleaners moved in with dusters, mops and vacuum cleaners. The paint fumes started to evaporate. Carpets were fitted down the aisles, tiles were cemented into the foyer floor, doors were fitted to the entrances and exits, chairs were brought in and placed on the now-raked auditorium levels.

Surreptitiously, the casino-linked hotel management installed several one-armed bandit machines in the foyer.

Des was outraged, and objected vociferously until the offending machines were summarily removed to the hotel foyer.

Two hours before curtain up, the little theatre was ready.

Not that there was a curtain! Just our stark Godspell playground set – a high diamond-mesh fence surmounted by a bandstand, prompt side. Godspell opened in Maseru on Sunday 30 September 1973.

This was a day and an opening night we shall never forget.

Read more: Des & Dawn: The lives and times of an inseparable duo 

***

1974, Godspell Banned

  The Censors Learn Their Lessons Well

Des: As we neared the end of the run in Maseru, Dawn and I gathered the cast around us on the stage. “We have come so far, we cannot let Godspell die, we must now take it into South Africa and prove that theatre should and must be open to all, no matter what colour or creed.

“Music is universal, the great leveller. Godspell holds a mirror to society and can bridge every divide. With Godspell as the perfect vehicle, we know we can change SA just a little. Will you come with us?”

Dawn: They did come with us, and what follows is a piece of South African musical theatre history of which we are truly proud.

We booked the Wits Great Hall, the only theatre on our alma mater’s campus at the time, and announced in the press that Godspell would have a two-week run. In order to circumvent the laws of the land such as the Group Areas Act, we opened booking to members of the Wits Convocation only.

Des: This restriction on audience attendance deserves a brief explanation of our strategy. “Convocation” in this context was defined as anyone who had attended Wits as a student at any time, anyone who was teaching or had taught there in the past, anyone who had earned or was currently earning a salary from Wits in whatever capacity (including maintenance and cleaning staff, and even the Dean of the Faculty of Parking) and all graduates. The Convocation provision would enable us to fulfil our undertaking to the rights-holders that Godspell in South Africa would play to a racially mixed and unrestricted audience. This brilliant plan to create a multiracial theatre environment was mooted by a former St John’s teacher of mine, Kendall Jarvis, who was at that time an academic at Wits.

Dawn: On 16 August 1971, just one year before we produced Godspell, the visionary Percy Tucker had devised and gone live with the world’s first computerised seat-booking system. All performances of the planned Godspell season at Wits were sold out in one day.

But a week before we were to open, we received a telegram and a letter on 7 March 1974 from the Publications Control Board. The censors had banned the show outright. We were forbidden on the grounds of blasphemy to perform the show anywhere in South Africa. We knew, of course, that this banning was a smoke-screen for the real issue: racial mixing on and off the stage. We were in a shocked state of despair, not knowing where to turn.

Des: We told journalist Marshall Lee what had happened and he immediately suggested we consult an activist friend of his who had studied law with him in Durban. When Marshall called him about the banning, Barend Van Niekerk called me. Without hesitation he told us to get off our butts to brief our attorney to take the case to the Supreme Court on appeal.

We had to make some critical choices. Who would best champion our cause and successfully represent us? I knew that the SA censors had been challenged in court over Scope magazine’s multiple bannings when issue after issue had published nude photos of women and girls. Leading Advocate Anton Mostert had recently beaten the Publications Control Board in numerous appeal cases before the Supreme Court. He was Scope’s Advocate of choice, and on the strength of his track record in censorship matters, we decided to approach him to fight the case for us. So I called him, introduced myself and told him about the banning.

His reply was, “I understand what you want me to do, but you cannot appoint me. Phone your attorney and instruct him to brief me. See you in Court!”

I called our attorney, Jeff Lin, and told him what I had in mind. “Please brief Advocate Anton Mostert to fight our case.”

“You cannot tell us who to brief,” was his response. “Give us all the details, and leave it to us. We will brief a suitable advocate to represent you.”

“We want Advocate Mostert,” I told him.

The answer was still, “No, that choice is our prerogative as your attorneys, not yours.”

“Right,” I replied. “Then we shall have to brief other attorneys who will appoint Advocate Mostert.” There was a brief silence and an uncomfortable clearing of the throat before he responded. “Very well, but I have to warn you, this is most unusual, Des and Dawn. On your heads be it.”

Later that day the phone rang. It was Anton Mostert. “Your attorney has briefed me. He tells me you are due to open in a week from now. I urgently need to get the detailed brief from you personally … tonight.”

We met that evening, and the urgent application to appeal the banning was promptly lodged in the Supreme Court. The hearing was set down for 5pm on Monday 11 March 1974.

When papers had been prepared, our attorney phoned Jannie Kruger of the Publications and Entertainment Control Board to inform him that we intended bringing an urgent application to the Supreme Court in Johannesburg for the appeal to be heard. He recalls that Kruger “seemed annoyed”.

Dawn: 5pm. Monday 11 March. The hearing commenced. The judge presiding was “Lammie” Snyman, at first glance a cheerless man with a scowling face and we were told, a God-fearing member of the Dutch Reformed Church. However, his rapid response to the urgency of the appeal proved him less threatening and hostile to our cause than his verkrampte (conservative) reputation had led us to believe.

In court Mostert was flamboyant, fearless, aggressive and brilliant.

“How can you justify this banning when you haven’t seen the show?” he challenged the Control Board Advocate.

The Judge, having heard the opening arguments and having dismissed the technicalities raised by the respondent, the PCB’s legal team, outlined how he ordered the matter to proceed, and adjourned the hearing until 9pm that same night, when it would resume in open court. We returned to our home with the entire cast, and spent the remaining couple of hours assembling our arguments with Advocate Mostert. Then we all raced back to the Supreme Court.

Judge Snyman made it clear that he agreed with Mostert’s argument, and ruled that Godspell must be allowed one performance before an audience, and that all attorneys and advocates from both sides of the case must attend and watch that performance. We knew that Tuesday’s opening night, the very next evening, was already booked to capacity. Somehow we were going to have to ensure that the “court” was given the best seats in the house for the performance. Several phone calls later, we’d juggled the seating to accommodate the judge and the lawyers, together with our 1 000-strong prebooked audience.

We had our opening night!

Des: Tuesday 12 March 1974, the Great Hall is packed with members of Convocation: alumni, professors, lecturers, past and present students… And row GG is filled with the dour line-up of the legal teams, half for us and half against. In the middle of the row sits Judge Lammie Snyman with his wife.

Eight o’clock, and the atmosphere is electric. The house-lights dim and the cast bursts one by one onto the stage for the prologue, at the end of which I am ready to blow my shofar from the back of the auditorium. The follow-spot picks me up and I sing Prepare Ye The Way Of The Lord, entering slowly down the aisle as John the Baptist, with plastic bucket and big white-wash brush to baptise the Godspell “street kids” in the mesh-fenced playground we have created on the Great Hall stage.

Dawn: I am standing at the back of the hall, scarcely breathing with excitement and experiencing some trepidation. Suddenly I feel a tap on my shoulder. I turn to see a policeman sternly beckoning me to come out into the foyer.

“Mrs Lindberg?” he says in Afrikaans. “Kom asseblief saam met my.”

He leads me across the foyer into the registrar’s office.

“We have received a report that there is a bomb in the theatre. You must stop the performance. Right away. Onmiddelik! Everyone must evacuate these premises immediately.”

I am dumbfounded. What to do? If I stop the show now, our chances of being granted another performance and persuading the court to set aside the banning will be gone, but if I refuse and there is a bomb, I will be held responsible for the deaths and injuries of hundreds of innocent people, among them some of the top brains in the country.

“No, I cannot do that,” I say, boldly hiding my dread. “This is a scare, a hoax. The show goes on.”

He reaches over the desk for a phone and dials John Vorster Square.

“Commandant, the producer refuses to stop the show. Wat moet ons maak?”

I can hear the barked reply: “Take the sniffer dog with her and check out all the storerooms, all the dressing-rooms, and search under the stage. Make sure she goes in first.”

I tense with terror. What if there is a bomb and I set it off? I do not fancy being blown up, even for Godspell. I look at the policeman’s surly scowl and try to hold my chin high.

“OK. Let’s go,” I say and I am marched off down the passage which runs down the side of the Great Hall, accompanied by the cop and his sniffer dog.

He kicks open each door backstage and pushes me into the dusty darkness with only his sweeping torchlight behind me. After a few seconds he follows me into each of the rooms off the backstage corridors with the dog held tightly on a leash.

Meanwhile the show is going on. “What is down there?” he asks. I lead him down the steps and into the area beneath the stage, where we are sprinkled with dust as the vigorous dance numbers above our heads are being performed. In the dim light of the police torch, we scan the area, where pianos and basket-skips, crates of old props, rusty light-stands and canvas and timber stage-flats are stored. All the dust suggests that no-one has been down there in ages.

The cop seems confused and unsure where to search next. I am relieved to hear the opening bars of You Are The Light Of The World, which Cocky sings to close the first half, and the cop, the dog and I hurry back to the foyer and into the theatre. As the house-lights come up for interval, we take the dog into the auditorium to sniff in the aisles and under seats. Abruptly the dog stops his handler at a seat beneath which there is a large leather case. The handler waves us back. He grabs the bag, saying “Kom gou, we must throw this into the swimming-pool there outside, quick … stand clear … Gee pad!”

He runs towards the exit, pursued by a distraught Rand Daily Mail photographer. “Hey you, what the hell is going on? Those are my cameras, man. I’m working here!”

Des: Meanwhile, on stage, as is the usual routine, the cast is mingling with the audience members, many of whom, at Bruce’s invitation, have trooped up to share what in London, New York and everywhere else had been small paper cups of wine. In South Africa, with a multiracial audience and cast, discretion is sometimes the better part of valour and we had decided not to breach the liquor laws of the time. Our cups contained Coca-Cola!

Naturally, still on stage, we are all blissfully unaware of the drama of the bomb-alert, and Dawn’s brave stand in the face of the cops and a dog-squad during the first half of the show.

The audience comprises a most distinguished array of Wits people, journalists, clergymen and, of course, the Judge, and the appeal court teams in row GG.

Up onto the stage comes Catholic Archbishop George Daniel, the brother of Raeford Daniel, the Rand Daily Mail critic. He takes his little cup of Coke, and asks me, “Isn’t that Helen Suzman over there?” I lead him across the crowded stage and introduce him to her. “I’ve always wanted to meet you,” he quips. “You’re the only Christian in Parliament!”

Dawn: Luckily there is no further need for police and dogs. The bomb-scare has proved to be just that.

We conjecture it has been engineered by pranksters or, more probably, people who really want the show to remain banned. We resume and complete the crucial performance, earning thunderous applause and a standing ovation, all witnessed by the lawyers and the Judge.

Next morning, the entire cast assembles in the Supreme Court to hear Judge Snyman’s ruling.

He proclaims that he will lift the banning on certain conditions:

In terms of the judgment handed down in an urgent Supreme Court action in Johannesburg, the following preface must be included in each programme for Godspell in South Africa, and must be read out to the audience before each performance commences:

“What you are about to see is a play. It is enacted by a group of joyous young people. The play is about the teachings, the life, the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ, who donned the motley of humanity in order the better to communicate with the other children of God. All the action is symbolic.”

In addition, the Jesus character may never be referred to as Jesus, or Lord, but rather, he must be called “Teacher” or “Master”.

And the actress performing the song Day By Day should raise only two fingers, not three (Judge Snyman never explained why!).

Apart from these stipulations, according to the judgment, the play can go on unhindered.

We are elated, cheering and hugging each other and our champion, the victorious Advocate Anton Mostert. Everyone cries tears of joy and relief on the steps of the Johannesburg Supreme Court. Our Godspell court victory is front-page news.

Des: Mostert asks us to walk with him to his chambers over the road so that he can help us interpret the judgment and advise us what we are now allowed to do after the short season at Wits is over.

He is adamant that we must carry on and tour the show.

His junior in the appeal hearing is the young Advocate Pieter Henning, appointed by Mostert as his junior counsel, who has been directed by Mostert to delve into the Group Areas Act and any other legislation that prohibits public performances in South Africa from having racially mixed casts and audiences. It had even been argued by some that it was illegal in terms of the Act ever to have a racially mixed cast.

Pieter Henning’s reading of the legislation reveals that mixed casts are not in fact illegal and never have been. We could not therefore be prevented by law from publicly presenting the show with a mixed cast. He attributes the loophole to sloppy drafting.

However, mixed audiences are, he says, strictly forbidden by the Group Areas Act, although its wording might have been clumsy and ambiguous in some respects.

So with this legal opinion to encourage us, we set up a tour of South Africa, and during the next 15 months, we open theatre door after theatre door to people of colour, albeit sometimes on separate nights, and frequently somehow manage to find ways of playing to integrated audiences.

As a result of the unbanning we are advised to go ahead with our plans. Out in the open are the ambiguous motives of the censors who had placed their emphasis on religious objections concerning alleged blasphemy rather than the racial mixing issues we believe were behind the banning.

The massive public approval that the court case has harvested for us in the press and media gives us hope that the Godspell battle has not been in vain.

Anton Mostert’s advice to us is practical and strategically shrewd. He is well acquainted with the South African judiciary and the reputation of the bench in each province.

“Go to Natal,” he urges us. “If any more legal challenges arise, the Natal judges will be your best bet in court.”

To our immense relief, as the tour proceeds countrywide, we have no need of any further legal representation in court despite having taken the expensive precaution of contacting and briefing attorneys in each major centre, just in case!

Dawn: However there are still religious zealots campaigning against our production. Often we are confronted by picketing Christian groups outside the theatres, but once inside at our invitation, sitting in the theatre to watch the show, they are swept along by the enthusiasm and approval shown by the packed houses as people cheer, laugh, weep and clap with gusto.

During the long tour all over South Africa that follows, we invite civil society leaders, clergymen from all faiths and the public at large to participate in post-show debates and Q&A sessions to meet the cast and us as producers.

Indeed religious leaders of all persuasions all over the world have come together to sing the praises of productions of Godspell.

In London, the cast was blessed by Dr Michael Ramsay, the 100th Archbishop of Canterbury.

In Paris, Cardinal Danielou said, “Godspell is the expression of a need that present society cannot satisfy.”

The New York Post summed up a message of joy and hope. It said, “Godspell is a  to order the bookwork that believes in God, the People and possibility.” DM

Every Day is an Opening Night retails at R430 in most bookshops in South Africa. You can also buy it here  or email directly your request at [email protected]  or call 066 114 7235.