Broadway songs emanated from St. James Episcopal Church on Monday, April 18, when members of the cast of the Jersey Boys National Tour and the St. James Chancel Choir came together to perform tunes from Broadway musicals. "Blow, Gabriel, Blow," "One Hand, One Heart, “Sabbath Prayer" and a multitude of other Broadway songs were sung. The impetus for the musical program was to have fun performing well-loved Broadway tunes as well as to demonstrate how God and religion are reflected in the Broadway musical.
Rector Bill Doggett, interim pastor at St. James, delivered a program concerning the interaction between popular culture and religion intermingled with musical performances from a variety of well-known and other lesser known productions.
Before Doggett became a priest, he had a career in the theater, teaching, directing, designing and conducting more than 100 productions. “Here’s how I became interested in the topic,” he said. “When I was in seminary, some friends and I once took one of our classmates, who was unfamiliar with such things, to a piano bar where she experienced the glory of a crowd of show-tune fanatics belting out torch songs at the top of their lungs. She seemed to generally enjoy the experience, but, to my surprise, she hated some of the songs. She wondered how anyone could write or sing songs where women expressed such destructive and codependent attitudes. Songs like Oliver’s ‘As Long as He Needs Me,’ ‘What’s the Use of Wondrin’’ from Carousel, and Fanny Brice’s Ziegfeld Follies number ‘My Man,’ reprised in Funny Girl, in which she sings ‘What’s the difference if I say I’ll go away/when I know I’ll come back on my knees someday,/for whatever my man is, I am his forevermore.’
“I had known and loved these songs as passionate and moving expressions of character, but I had never thought about what they might mean out of context, particularly to women, and I began at that point to wonder whether these songs, with their riveting tunes and deep emotions might actually be perpetuating social and cultural attitudes about relationships that might be rather unhealthy. Now, of course, I say, ‘duh!’ ‘Obviously!’ but with my Broadway blinders on, I had honestly never thought about it. But when I did, it made me wonder what other social attitudes were being shaped by popular culture, and so, about 10 years ago, I did a version of this talk for the first time.”
In his discussion, Doggett demonstrated how Broadway musicals directly reflect societal mores such as: Americans distancing themselves from the church, attitudes toward women, racism and the reluctance to give religious leaders a voice.
The soloists were Harley Venton from the St. James' Congregation, who is also a professional actor, Doggett, Keith Hines, De'Lon Grant, Thomas Fiscella, Richard Leigh-Nilsen, Leslie Doggett, and Jenna Schoen — cast members of the Jersey Boys National Tour. Leigh-Nilsen is the stage manager, and Leslie Doggett is the assistant propmaster — and also the sister of Doggett. Because “Jersey Boys” was playing at the National Theatre in D.C., Leslie Doggett and her brother were able to include them in the program. He commented that the cast members have thanked him numerous times for “allowing” them to perform at St. James Episcopal. “It should definitely be the other way around,” he said. “Their talent and performances were amazing.”