John Michael Tebelak (November 1, 1917-April 2, 1985) was a playwright and director, who is most famous for creating the musical Godspell, based on the Gospel of Saint Matthew with music and lyrics by Stephen Schwartz.

He originally produced Godspell as his masters thesis project at Carnegie-Mellon University in 1971, when he was 22. He had been studying Greek and Roman mythology, with the deadline for his thesis two weeks away, but became fascinated by the joy he found in the Gospels. He attended an Easter Vigil service in 1970 at Pittsburgh's St. Paul’s Cathedral, wearing his usual overalls and T-shirt. A policeman frisked him for drugs afterwards. "I left with the feeling that, rather than rolling the rock away from the Tomb, they were piling more on. I went home, took out my manuscript, and worked it to completion in a non-stop frenzy." Though he never completed his coursework at the university, Carnegie-Mellon awarded him his degree.

Subsequently, Tebelak directed productions of Godspell at La MaMa Theatre, the Cherry Lane Theatre, the Promenade Theatre, and on Broadway. Besides being named Theatre Man of the Year by Elliott Norton of the Boston-Record American named him Theatre Man of the Year, and the New York Drama Desk name him Most Promising Director of 1971. He was also named An Outstanding Ohioan by then-Governor John Gilligan.

In 1972, Tebelak directed the play, Elizabeth I on Broadway, and off-Broadway staged The Glorious One in 1975 and Ka-Boom in 1980. He also directed Lope de Vega's Fuenteovejuna in Madrid in 1975. He is also co-writer of the 1973 film of Godspell with David Greene.

Tebelak once said that he "walked into a theatre at the age of nine and stayed there." He was a member of the Episcopal Church all his life, possibly thought about becoming a priest and may have attended an Episcopal seminary for a time. He was dramaturge for the Cathedral_of_Saint_John_the_Divine in New York and staged liturgical drama there. According to Rev. James Parks Morton, "Whether it was a sermon series or a two-day conference on the environment, he turned it into theater." He died April 2, 1985 of a heart attack in New York City at age 36. The cathedral’s theater was named after him.

External links

• John Michael Tebelak at stephenswartz.com (http://www.musicalschwartz.com/godspell-tebelak.htm) Biography and interview