Broadway musicals usually cost $5 million to $10 million to produce, and that money often comes in checks for $50,000 or more from experienced investors who wouldn’t mind the tax write-off if their show flops. But this season’s revival of “Godspell” has introduced a new breed: shareholders who have put as little as $1,000 each into the $5 million musical and in return have gotten a rare inside look at show business, including the ear of the lead producer.

Jane Strauss is one of these 700 People of Godspell, an investment group 15 to 20 times bigger than Broadway musicals usually have. Ms. Strauss, a theater actress who has never financed a show before, was vocal at a recent shareholder meeting about her concern that the production’s new poster (featuring the star Corbin Bleu) lacked the brand image that has sold “Godspell” since the 1970s: A serene-looking man with long wavy hair.

“Have you thought of keeping the iconic hair and putting Corbin’s face in there?” asked Ms. Strauss, one of 100 investors seated in the musical’s Circle in the Square Theater or watching online. The show’s advertising man, Sandy Block, said no, and Ms. Strauss shot back asking why. At which point the lead producer, Ken Davenport, proposed squeezing the old image into a corner of the poster. Ms. Strauss moved on, though she said afterward that she worried the poster would look “too typical.”

In adapting the crowd-funding model for commercial theater Mr. Davenport is going to an extreme never achieved recently on Broadway — and for good reason, say other producers, who shake their heads imagining the time and sanity that Mr. Davenport expends on his shareholder flock. “Godspell” is attempting to bring youthful energy and new investors to an old-guard industry that has always depended on the kindness of real-estate moguls and divorcees with shrewd lawyers.