After Paul’s two female companions had finished their auditions, Schwartz summoned him to the edge of the stage. Schwartz expressed to Paul how frustrated he was with the regular accompanist’s dainty, traditional piano playing and how much he admired Paul’s pounding, rockier style. Would Paul, Schwartz wondered, be willing to take over for the rest of the auditions? Though he didn’t know how to read music, Paul said yes. He has the entire catalogue of popular music in that brilliant head of his, and he proved himself able to play anything asked of him that day, including Gilda’s request of “Zip-a-Dee-Doo-Dah.”

My fashion concession to the times was a jive-turkey newsboy cap—on John Lennon or Sly Stone it would have been called a pimp cap—that I wore slightly askew over my now shaggy hair. But my audition piece was pure throwback: a variation of Frank Sinatra’s version of “My Funny Valentine” that I put over with just enough in-on-the-joke self-awareness to connect with the counterculturists who surrounded me.

Nearly everyone else auditioned with a song from the rock or folk idioms, and one, a tall guy with the golden ringlets of Art Garfunkel and the face of Michelangelo’s David, did an actual Godspell song, “Save the People,” which left the rest of us envious of both his cunning and his talent. This was Victor Garber. I would later learn that, though he was my age, Victor had already had a 60s career as part of a Mamas and Papas-like folk-pop group called the Sugar Shoppe, which had made a couple of appearances on The Ed Sullivan Show. His quavery voice was gentle yet strong, like the fluttering flap of butterfly wings. Victor delivered his song beautifully, to the palpable awe of everyone in the hall. Jesus had come to the Masonic Temple.

When it was all over that day, Schwartz picked 10 people to form the original Toronto cast of Godspell. Victor was a shoo-in as Jesus. Gilda, despite my initial misunderstanding of her approach, was also an obvious “yes.” Eugene and I made it, too. We couldn’t believe it—close friends, getting our first big break, together. He was 25, and I would turn 22 the next day. Avril Chown, one of the two girls who had pressed Paul into service as an accompanist, was picked for the cast as well. As for Paul himself, Schwartz gave him the break of his life by offering him a job as *Godspell’*s bandleader and musical director. The Canadian bar’s loss was showbiz’s gain.

Before rehearsals began, Howie Sponseller, the director, threw a cast party so that we apostles of Christ could better get to know one another. It was just a gathering of callow theater geeks drinking jug wine, but, to me, it was the most amazing party I had ever been to. Why? Because I was in a room where everyone was making a living by being in show business. That fact floored me. I didn’t want the evening to end. The life of the party was Gilda, who jovially worked the room, making conversation with everyone. She did this, however, while very conspicuously holding the tip of her right index finger to her forehead, even as she was walking around and maneuvering between people. When I asked Gilda why she was doing this, she lifted her finger for a moment to reveal a pimple that she didn’t want anyone else to see. I found this hilarious and charming. Gilda was a rare event, hard to explain if not experienced in person. I had never met a woman so comfortable in her strangeness.

Up in the Rafters##

Godspell opened at the Royal Alexandra Theatre on June 1, 1972, mere days after my graduation from McMaster. Our good feelings about what we had were ratified by the audience, whose members, dressed in black-tie for opening night, bought in from the moment the curtain went up, laughing and applauding beyond our wildest expectations. My big song was “We Beseech Thee”—what is known in the theater, I would learn, as the 11-o’clock number, a showstopper that occurs late in the second act. This one was a vamping, up-tempo gospel-style song that, in our version, built and built and built to a rousing finish.