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Stirring, deeply felt musical having its world premiere at the American Repertory Theater through March 16, 2014. For once, good intentions are transformed into powerful theater.

Diane Paulus, who is directing American Repertory Theater’s production of “Witness Uganda,” says its music “didn’t sound like anything I had heard before.”

Matt Gould and Griffin Matthews developed the musical “Witness Uganda” to tell the story of the founding of UgandaProject and inspire others to help.

“I want to encourage people to come to this,” says Paulus.“It asks hard questions, it’s a piece of tremendous heart, and it is actually really funny.” And to reiterate, with Paulus the audience is in good hands. In Gould’s words, “There is a reason why she is the goddess of the American musical theater.”

When Griffin Matthews flew off to Uganda in 2005, he had no idea he’d return with a sense of purpose, a love life and a musical.

The A.R.T does it again with WITNESS UGANDA a vibrant, moving world premiere production, that tells a modern true story of the power and the dark side of philanthropy(!) and stars the actual gay, black, Christian man who lived it.

Uganda threatens to join Oklahoma and Brigadoon as a favored musical-theater destination.

Here presented in its world premiere and masterfully directed by Diane Paulus, it tells the story of an African-American actor, tired of pounding the pavement in New York, who volunteers to go to Uganda to help build a village school just outside the capital city of Kampala. 

Perhaps because Gould and Matthews don’t play up the pathos — they’re just telling a true story, honestly and artfully — it’s all the more overwhelming when it catches you unawares.

It’s hard to imagine a more achingly personal musical than “Witness Uganda.” And that’s what helps to make this world premiere at American Repertory Theater so involving – and, in many ways, so remarkable.