Director's Note

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I was born in Havana. Despite having had a Spanish passport since my birth, I arrived in Spain in 1973, after having lived in different countries. Was 14 years old.

If belonging to a group is important for a teenager, for one who changes country and, therefore, schoolyard with some regularity, it is even more so.

Thus, arriving in Spain brought with it the possibility of putting down roots and making new friends.

Among my first memories from then is curiously Godspell. My sister Rita had just passed the audition to join the first company that would premiere the musical in Spain in 1974.

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Some time later, Godspell would cross my path again, as it was the play chosen by my neighborhood friends and I to perform and raise funds for a school.

We were moved by the music, the stage. My friend Antonio Vega was among them, of course, in charge of the music.

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Adolescence, friends who feel like brothers, brothers who feel like friends, the first stolen kisses, and not so stolen. Music, theater, games, and that feeling of being invincible, that everything is possible if we are moved by Love and Justice.

Cut, almost 50 years later, in the dressing room after an endearing recording and with the adrenaline of having sung together, Antonio Banderas tells me about the next musical that he would like to premiere.

This is Godspell. Once again, the friendship and passion that unites us, for music and the privileged craft of telling stories, brings me back to Godspell. Maybe it's not just a coincidence anymore.

Maturity, friends that are no longer here, family that is growing. And the music, the theater, the game continues and, although I have already learned that I am vulnerable, I continue to feel the strength of Love and Justice.

Godspell is about that: about Love, about pursuing justice, about accepting the rules of the game without giving in to what hurts us. And, above all, to remember, if we have forgotten it, that life is a path that we need to travel hand in hand with each other.

Godspell is about building a beautiful city where we all have our place.

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Antonio Banderas and I have the challenge of revisiting the first montage by John-Michael Tebelak and Stephen Schwartz, respecting its freshness, but with the perspective of this 21st century. With the help of the gospels of Saint Matthew we will establish the parallelism of the passion of Jesus with the passions of so many who suffer in our days. To do this, we will introduce elements of vaudeville, magic and new musical arrangements, in addition to giving the characters more terrain and the possibility of being multifaceted.

We hope to build a new passion!

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Emilio Aragon