Church Musical

What would be a good musical for a high school church choir to put on? The decision is not in my hands, but I just want to see some ideas. The musical can be as obscure or well-recognized as it gets, but it has to have some type of message to tie into the Christian faith. We find out which musical we will be performing in on the 24th, and I will be sure to let you all know.

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Godspell and Jesus Christ Superstar fit the bill. Les Mis could be forced as well; after all, the moral of the show is "To love another person is to see the face of God." Cotton Patch Gospel could fit.

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It's A Wonderful Life, if they are comfortable ith some experimental music.

Depends...what's your budget and what's your talent like?

Joseph
JCS
Godspell

Church-specific Christmas musicals that are great:
Two from Galilee
The Christmas Post

Not that it's a great show but Two by Two might be an interesting choice to consider. There are some nice songs and as a telling of the Noah story I can see its old fashioned cuteness working well for a church choir provided you have the right people, especially an endearing comic lead who can play old for Noah (the Danny Kaye role) a sexy funny soprano (Madeline Kahn) and a great tenor (Walter Willison). It should also be fairly inexpensive to mount, although I don't think it has a chorus to speak of, so that might scratch that idea.

If you wanted to do something non-biblical but with great values and wholesomeness there are many choices but you might want to look at A Tree Grows in Brooklyn, Oliver, Lost in the Stars, Peter Pan, The King and I, The Sound of Music, Dear World, Les MIs (as suggested), Anyone Can Whistle and Once on This Island (the age and ethnicity demographics of your choir and the politics of your congregation may play a role in your choice).

@SeanMartin
The people who would be preforming would be young women and young men from the ages of 14-22. Our church is primarily white.

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Okay, now see, there's something to work with.

Yes any of the Big Three would do just fine. If you want to go a little outside the box, yes, TWO BY TWO, which has a pretty decent score. There's A TIME TO STAND, which is the Esther story. There is LES DIX COMMANDEMENTS, but try to get the original French and translate it rather than that piece of garbage done with Val Kilmer in LA. And of course CHILDREN OF EDEN, which has some pretty spectacular moments.

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This could be the thread of the year! Please suggest musicals. I won't be picking, and the person who is won't see this, but please suggest away.

You could try one of the original pieces by Lights Up Productions; they're all essentially Christian musicals. "The Passion of the King" and "Lost in Vegas" are, IMO, the better of the two. Passion has a lot of catchy ensemble numbers that might work nicely for a choir.

However this would rate pretty far into the "obscure" side of music.

'Anyone Can Whistle??!?!?!?'

Certainly it's a show with good values. But to SeanMartin's point, for all I knew phan's church might be hip, green, anti-establishment, specialize in community work with the mentally ill, and be filled to the brim with aging socialists and gay theater people. In other words, Phan could be from the Lafayette Avenue Presbyterian Church Choir in Fort Greene (which puts on quite a Christmas show by the way). I was really shooting in the dark.

Big River
it has some Gospel in it..besides it's about a journey of someone "unlearning" racism. finding real friendship in someone from another background

The results are in...(drumroll please)
my church is doing JESUS CHRIST SUPERSTAR!

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