Witness Uganda, previously known as Invisible Thread, is a compelling musical conceived by the creative duo of Matt Gould and Griffin Matthews. This musical, inspired by true events, chronicles Griffin's transformative experience during a volunteer mission to Uganda, where he forges deep connections with a diverse group of teenage students.
The narrative explores themes of identity, community, and the challenges of making a meaningful impact in a complex world. When home doesn’t feel like home, and any family connections must be forged, Griffin and the students discover community where they least expect it.
The Studio Cast Recording of Witness Uganda (An American Musical) was produced by GRAMMY® Award-winner Stephen Bray (Madonna, Kylie Minogue, Jennifer Hudson, Respect Movie) who became a fan of the show during one of its early workshops. Recorded over the course of six weeks in Los Angeles and New York, the album was co-produced by Remy Kurs, Cian McCarthy, Michael Verdick, Matt Gould, Griffin Matthews, and Oliver Roth and was executive produced by OHenry Productions, Jana Shea, Jonathan Demar, and Van Dean and Deena Zucker for Broadway Records.
The musical premiered under the title Witness Uganda on February 4, 2014, at the American Repertory Theater in Cambridge. The American Repertory Theatre wrote: When Griffin, a young man from New York City, volunteers for a project in Uganda, he finds himself on a journey that will change his life forever. Inspired by a true story, this rousing new musical, staged by Tony Award-winning director and A.R.T.
The musical came to Diane Paulus' attention after it won the 2012 Richard Rodgers Award for Musical Theater. She was impressed and noted it was like nothing she ever heard or read before. While she was working on Pippin at the American Repertory Theater, Schwartz mentioned there was a musical about Uganda that would interest her.
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Meet Witness Uganda
Gould and Matthews initially performed the show by themselves to raise funds for The Uganda Project. They were invited to perform at TEDx and Disney ASCAP. During their Disney ASCAP performance, they were able to impress the composer/lyricist Stephen Schwartz, who composed notable musicals such as Wicked. Gould and Matthews brought in additional members of the creative team, who also had foreign aid experience.
The title was changed to Invisible Thread in 2015 for a production at the Second Stage Theatre.
Synopsis of Witness Uganda
The musical follows Griffin, a recent musical-theater graduate from Carnegie Mellon, who embarks on a volunteer mission to Uganda with the intention of helping build a school for AIDS orphans. There are an estimated 2.5 million orphans in Uganda today.
Griffin is forever troubled by the fear that whatever good intentions he may have held amount in the end to little more than Western neocolonialism, the idea that people from America know better than the Ugandans how to run their society and fix their lives. However, he sees how “his” orphans have been effectively left to their own devices, without schooling of any kind or healthy prospects for the future.
Among the varied young teenagers at the school, there are distinct personalities, and all get their chance to shine. But there is one recruit to the school who wins the not openly gay Griffin’s heart, Jacob (Kameron Richardson), but Jacob feels torn between his obligations at the church mission where he was raised as an orphan with his bossy sister Joy (Amber Iman) by a religiously demanding pastor and his wife.
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The HIV virus, of course, knows nothing of straight, gay or anything else. Only a couple of years ago, scores of intravenous drug users in one Indiana county seroconverted to HIV-positive because the government of homophobic ultra-right Christian Gov. Mike Pence would not allow them to access sterile syringes. In Uganda, the discourse is slanted by widespread evangelical judgment which hinders the adoption of nonjudgmental science-based approaches.
The role of civil society and private philanthropy in transforming government policy is highly debatable-often welcome, but as often as not, intrusive and patronizing. Each case must be studied independently. The main factor should always be, Does the country invite such aid and how much control does the country exert once the aid starts coming in?
Themes and Reception
Witness Uganda grapples with complex themes of cultural exchange, the challenges of humanitarian work, and the search for personal identity. It works very hard to resist oversimplification, self-aggrandizement, unearned sentiment and triumphant anthems - in other words, all of a musical’s natural tendencies. Its opening song darkly foretells the frustrating and frightening experiences in store for Griffin. And before the last chords of the stirring final number, “Invisible Thread,” have faded away, Griffin is ruefully telling us that of the millions of orphans in Uganda, his nonprofit has educated just 12.
One of the most striking aspects of Witness Uganda is its commitment to authenticity and vulnerability. Tension between the show’s musical and documentary goals is constant, and that tension is effective in conveying the message that changing the world is, if not impossible, then really, really, really hard.
While the book may need further refinement, the musical's strengths lie in its performances, particularly the actors portraying the Ugandan orphans.
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This story of an “innocent abroad” is miles ahead of the loopy Book of Mormon, a highly popular musical that some critics have found to be racist toward Africans. In Witness Uganda, the authors have struggled to understand their own biases, and have offered audiences the hand-clapping, foot-stomping opportunity to examine their own.
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