The cast is VERY devasted. How would you like to be prepping for rehearsals, learning lines and music and doing research -- all this time knowing that you're going to open in a Broadway show this Fall, ready to start rehearsals next week, and then suddenly you get an e-mail and phone calls saying "sorry, we couldn't raise the money and your contract does not go into effect. The production is cancelled."
Some actors had given up other Broadway shows to do this. Others didn't bother going to other auditions because they already had a show. Perhaps some had other offers but chose GODSPELL instead.
Not to mention the designers and creative team who had been working.
This is such a roller-coaster business. One minute you're up and the next you've plummeted down.
"The Spectacle has, indeed, an emotional attraction of its own, but, of all the parts, it is the least artistic, and connected least with the art of poetry. For the power of Tragedy, we may be sure, is felt even apart from representation and actors. Besides, the production of spectacular effects depends more on the art of the stage machinist than on that of the poet."
--Aristotle