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Home  / News & Publications /  Michigan Catholic News / 2009 /  New musical tells story of Knights' founder

by Robert Delaney of The Michigan Catholic
Published November 27, 2009

Fr. Perrone Maher

Detroit - The story of Knights of Columbus founder the Venerable Michael J. McGivney is the subject of the new musical "McGivney!" being given its world premiere run Dec. 6-13 at Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary (Grotto) Parish.

The musical is the creation of writer-producer-director Joe Maher and composer-conductor Fr. Eduard Perrone, the same team who produced the musicals "Palla Eius" and "The Heritance."

Hollywood veteran Maher again wrote the script, Fr. Perrone (Grotto's pastor) again wrote the music, but this time they were joined by Daniel Misteravich, organist at St. Florian Parish, Hamtramck, who wrote most of the lyrics.

Maher says he never thought he would be cranking out the scrippt for a new musical every year, but (former Detroit Auxiliary) Bishop John Quinn persuaded him to do another after his first effort, "Palla Eius," and then Gerald Wilczynski, former Grand Knight of Assumption Grotto K of C Council 13419, asked him to consider writing one about the Knights' founder after last year's "The Heritance."

"He called me every week for six weeks, so finally I talked to Fr. Perrone about it," Maher says.

That set Maher to doing research on the life of Fr. McGivney, whose cause for sainthood took a major step forward last year when Pope Benedict XVI declared him "venerable," that is worthy of private veneration.

At first, he says, Fr. McGivney's life didn't seem to lend itself to dramatization, but then he realized that the drama was in the situations that prompted the Connecticut priest to found the Knights of Columbus in 1882.

"Probably the most exciting thing about his life was all the activity going on around him to which he responded," Maher says, talking about a time where young Irish immigrant men were too often drinking heavily and dying early after contracting "the cough" - tuberculosis - in the industrial facilities and mines of that era, leaving widows and young children unprovided for.

And the state would typically take children away from widows who lacked the financial wherewithal to provide for them, he adds.

After stepping up to provide assistance to one young widow and her children, Fr. McGivney began searching for solutions, and the answer was the Knights, both to provide young men with a sense of purpose and to provide an insurance plan to safeguard their families' future, Maher says. And the organization also provided a Catholic alternative to the secret societies flourishing at the time.

Fr. Perrone praises Fr. McGivney as "an outstanding American priest" and says it is especially fitting to celebrate his life during this Year of the Priest.

He says Fr. McGivney "joined a concern for social action to his priesthood, and his thinking foreshadowed the coming day of the increased role of the laity."

Fr. Perrone says his music for the show encompasses a variety of styles, from the blues to marches, to pieces inspired by the classical and Broadway traditions.

Maher says "McGivney!" has drawn the interest of Knights from not only Michigan, but also from Ohio and Indiana. And he says he believes Jason Kucel, the 24-year-old actor who plays the lead, is "one of the up-and-coming stars of theatre."