A marching band isn’t a typical element of Catholic Mass. Nor are a kazoo-playing children’s choir, a rock band and dancers.
“Mass,” a musical representation of the Catholic liturgy by Northwestern’s Theatre and Interpretation Center and Bienen School of Music, features all of these varied performers. The show opened Thursday night in Cahn Auditorium, featuring updated lyrics from award-winning composer and lyricist Stephen Schwartz.
Schwartz, who also wrote music and lyrics for hit musical “Wicked,” along with several Disney movies and other productions, will visit campus Friday to see the show, after holding two master classes for NU students. He said one class is for performing students and the other for musical theater writers.
Schwartz said he wanted to be sure Director Dominic Missimi knew about the revised lyrics when he found out NU was performing “Mass.”
Schwartz updated the lyrics from the show’s original premiere in Sept. 1971, performed for the opening of the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts. The show’s original composer, Leonard Bernstein, had only five months to complete the project and enlisted budding composer Schwartz, then 23, whose show “Godspell” had just made its Broadway premiere, to assist him.
Schwartz said he and Bernstein weren’t completely satisfied with their finished product.”Pretty much what got on and premiered was first draft,” Schwartz said. “There really wasn’t time to go back and polish or rewrite. And frankly, part of it had to do with the fact that I was very young.”
For this adaptation, Schwartz revised the lyrics in collaboration with Bernstein’s daughter Jamie.
“The idea of the revisions is not to change the content, but to execute the content better,” he said.
Missimi said he chose “Mass” as the fall mainstage production because he directed the show during his first year at NU in 1991 and felt it would be fitting to direct the production again, with the revised lyrics, before retiring this year.
Missimi said the show should be compelling not only for the updated lyrics, but for its individuality and the variety of music it incorporates.
“Because of the many elements in the work, it defies categorization,” Missimi said. “It is its own species.”
While the show is based on the liturgy of a Catholic Mass, it incorporates Hebrew and eastern music, with nods to other world religions.
NU’s production features about 200 performers including singers, dancers and musicians. Missimi said the set design this year is unique because it looks like a church being constructed or renovated, which is not traditional for the production. He said it can be interpreted as a metaphor for the show’s theme, a “crisis of faith.”
Andrew Howard, a senior in the School of Communication, plays the role of the celebrant in “Mass.” He said there are a number of reasons to be enthusiastic about both Schwartz’s visit and the production.
“I’m actually really excited Stephen Schwartz saw Northwestern as a worthy venue,” he said.
Missimi said although at first he was unsure he could match the quality of his original show, he believes the talented performers this year may have done it.
“(Mass) has exquisitely beautiful writing,” he said. “Come expecting the unexpected.”
