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A Letter From Gilmer
A while back, I wrote to Gilmer McCormick and recently received a reply from her. You will probably recognize her as part of the original New York cast of Godspell, as well as a part of the motion picture cast. I thought I would post her letter to me since she mentions working with, as well as knowing, Jeffrey Mylett.
Dear Annette,
I am so sorry it has taken me so long to respond to your wonderful letter. My husband and I have been traveling and now we're back home again and I'm trying to catch up on all my mail and there you were.
Thank you for all the nice things you said about me and my work in Godspell. The older I get the more I realize how blessed I was (and continue to be) for being a part of a show that was so extraordinary and life changing for so many people and in so many ways...me included. When we first started rehearsals for Godspell no one really knew what we were getting ourselves into or that it was destined to become what it did. We were just ten "kids" who had recently (most of us) just graduated from Carnegie Mellon University, then Carnegie Tech., trying to make our way in New York. John Michael had written Godspell, as you probably know, as his Master's Thesis for school and after graduation he wanted to get some of us together again to re-mount it in New York. We rehearsed on a nightly basis somewhere in the NY village for a month or so and managed to put together this ragtag little show with a ho-hum score (none of us could really even sing) and went up for a two week run at Cafe La Mama not expecting much, I assure you. Well, on the last night another former classmate of ours (Charlie Haid) was working at the time for Lansbury/Duncan/Beruh Producers and saw the show and brought them to see it. They loved it, bought it, closed it down for a month, hired Stephen Schwartz to write a new score, fired two of the former cast members and hired two others who could sing (Joanne and Lamar) and we went "back up" at the Cherry Lane Theatre sometime in May of 1971 and the rest, as they say, is history.
You asked about Jeffrey. He and I went to college together and did a lot of summer stock together, too. He was a very close friend and in fact, when Stephen and I had our second child, Eve, he was named her Godfather. There's not a day that goes by that I don't think of him and miss him with all my heart. He was a very spiritual man and a very kind man but he was also a man who like to live dangerously, I think. He was funny and very wise for his age; he even traveled to India for a while studying the mystics and getting into all sorts of New Age ideas and concepts way ahead of the rest of us. He meditated and talked about things like "Karma" which were all new to us in the seventies. When Stephen and I bought our first house in Connecticut, Jeffrey bought a home too in the same town, and we would all commute together to New York to do the show at night. He would have been pleased that you remember him and think him so special still, after all these years.
However, the movie was an entirely different experience altogether and not a particularly fond one to tell you the truth. They dropped five members of the original cast and replaced them with more "movie types" for the film which I have always contended was a huge mistake. Also they hired an English director named David Greene who (in my opinion) didn't know the first thing about American Street Theatre (which is what Godspell was) and just fumbled his way through. I guess the finished product was okay but, like you said, you just couldn't compare it to the original stage production in values, story telling and impact. But oh well. At least it's there for other generations to get a glimpse of what it was, and re-inspire you, and others like you, towards those same values. One can't ask for anything more than that. I'll look around and see if I can't send you some special memorabilia I might have laying around.
Thank you for writing Annette, and I hope that I have answered some of your questions. Please let me know how your production went, especially since you played "Gilmer." I have a vested interest in all people who play me.
Keep in touch and if you're ever in California look me up.
Blessings and love,
Gilmer
Thanks, Gilmer!!
(I couldn't resist posting
the above drawing of Gilmer, by
Rebecca. Thanks, Rebecca!)
(Click the picture below to return to the From the Godspellers section.)
bravenet.com