IF YOU GO* What: “Cotton Patch Gospel.”* When: 8 p.m. today, Saturday and Jan. 27-29; 2 p.m. Sunday.* Where: Artistic Civic Theatre, ACT Playhouse Mainstage, Gaston Street, Dalton, Ga.* Admission: $15 adults, $13 seniors, $11 students ($3 less for members).* Phone: 706-278-4796.
If you thought you knew The Greatest Story Ever Told, think again.
Do you know the one about Jesus being born in an abandoned trailer behind a motel in Gainesville, Ga.? If not, the Artistic Civic Theatre will explain it all with its interpretation of “Cotton Patch Gospel,” which plays the next two weekends at the Dalton venue.
The work is based on the book “The Cotton Patch Version of Matthew and John” by Clarence Jordan, the founder of Koinonia Farm, a pioneering interracial farming community, in Americus, Ga. The musical is written by Tom Key and Russell Treyz and has music and lyrics by the late singer/songwriter Harry Chapin. It was the last completed work by Chapin, who died in an automobile accident in 1981.
The musical finds some scholars from the Orient bringing gifts of a gold American Express card, candles that smelled like peaches, and a bottle of Jade East; Herod, the governor of Georgia worrying about a National Enquirer story that claims Jesus will be the next governor of Georgia; Jesus’ growing-up years in Valdosta, Ga.; his miracle at Stone Mountain; Jesus’ picture on the cover of Time; his feeding of the 5,000 with two cans of sardines and five boxes of Nabiscos; his triumphal entry into Atlanta in an old Volkswagen convertible; his being sentenced to the Lee Correctional Institute; and his eventual lynching in the woods while on the way to prison.