Cotton Patch Gospel
1999 · New Salem; Beardstown RLDS Church; Galesburg (touring)
Cotton Patch Gospel is Harry Chapin's exuberant bluegrass musical — "The Greatest Story Ever Retold" — that transplants the Gospels of Matthew and John out of ancient Palestine and into modern-day Georgia. The book by Tom Key and Russell Treyz draws on the late Clarence Jordan's Cotton Patch translation of the New Testament, in which Jesus is born in Gainesville, baptized in the Chattahoochee, and walks the red-clay back roads of the rural South. It was the last music Chapin completed before his death in 1981, and from one end to the other, as Ken Bradbury put it, "it's pure bluegrass... and some of the best music Harry Chapin has ever written."
Ken directed this production for the New Salem Lincoln League in the summer of 1999, with a hand-picked company of musician-actors. "We didn't have auditions," he wrote. "I simply picked the best people I knew and they all said yes. I just love this show and the wonderfully fresh message it brings." The challenge — and the reason many companies never attempt the piece — is that it demands accomplished bluegrass players who can also carry a scene. Ken found his banjo man in his own back yard: Larry Kernagis, principal of Beardstown High School, who "when he plays the banjo, the stage smokes."
The run carried Ken's company across west-central Illinois that summer, with the main performances staged at New Salem on August 6, 7, and 8, additional dates around the region, and a touring leg to Galesburg. One Beardstown-area performance was moved at the last minute to the Beardstown RLDS Church on August 1st "due to the heat." Before each show, Ken offered the audience the story behind the story — Clarence Jordan's Koinonia Farm, an interracial Georgia community persecuted through the 1950s and 60s, whose partnership with Millard Fuller would one day become Habitat for Humanity. As Jordan said of his work, "I want to restore the original feeling of excitement of the fast-breaking news... the Good News."
Cast
- Jesus — Greg Floyd
- Matthew / Guitar — Dylan Phelps
- Rock / 5-string banjo — Larry Kernagis
- John the Baptizer / Bass Guitar — Mike Post
- Andy / Guitar, Mandolin, Dobro — Chuck West
- Jud / Joe / Guitar — Brad Barnes
- Mary / Triangle — Linda Schneider
- Young Jesus — Matthew Johnston
- 4-string banjo, accordion / Several of the Bad Guys, including Director — Ken Bradbury
Production Notes
- Presented by: The New Salem Lincoln League
- Director: Ken Bradbury
- Music & book: Harry Chapin, with book by Tom Key and Russell Treyz, based on the book by Clarence Jordan
- Setting: Modern Day Georgia; one 15-minute intermission
- Main run: New Salem, August 6, 7 & 8, 1999; with regional dates (including a relocated August 1 performance at the Beardstown RLDS Church) and a touring leg to Galesburg, August 13–15
- Rights: Produced by special arrangement with The Dramatic Publishing Company, Woodstock, IL
- Support: Made possible in part by grants from the Illinois Humanities Council, the National Endowment for the Humanities, the Illinois General Assembly, and the Illinois Arts Council. Promotional photographs courtesy of Studio 131 Photography, Springfield.
The cast doubled as the band, picking and singing their way through the show to create a true bluegrass/folk atmosphere. For several of the players — Mike Post among them, who had appeared in three previous stagings — this was a return to a beloved piece. The show drew on national notices in its publicity: the Associated Press called it "a winner," and The New York Times dubbed it "an exuberant country western hoedown."