‘Jesus Christ Superstar’ returns in NBC’s live Easter production
In staging “Jesus Christ Superstar” live for television on Easter Sunday, those involved are taking the iconic rock opera back to its roots.
Originated as a concept album by composer Andrew Lloyd Webber and lyricist Tim Rice, the retelling of the last week of Jesus’ life gets a concert-style performance April 1 on NBC. Title star John Legend is among the music staples in the production, along with Sara Bareilles as Mary Magdalene and Alice Cooper as King Herod. The cast also includes Broadway veterans Brandon Victor Dixon (“The Color Purple”) as Judas, Ben Daniels (“Les Liaisons Dangereuses”) as Pontius Pilate, and Norm Lewis (“The Phantom of the Opera”) as Caiaphas.
Attended by an in-person audience at the Marcy Armory in the Williamsburg section of Brooklyn, N.Y., “Jesus Christ Superstar Live in Concert” is the latest live TV musical from longtime producing partners Craig Zadan and Neil Meron. They’ve also furnished NBC with “The Sound of Music,” “Peter Pan,” “The Wiz” and “Hairspray” in recent years. (Marc Platt, who did the live “Grease” and “A Christmas Story” for Fox, also is a “Superstar” executive producer.)
Citing “Superstar” as “the first time rock music was used to tell such a controversial story,” Meron says he and Zadan first considered producing a TV version right after the 2013 “Sound of Music” broadcast.
“Craig and I had the great fortune of meeting Andrew and Tim in the 1970s,” Meron adds, when he and Zadan oversaw a series of programs involving composers and lyricists. “This is reconnecting with someone we’d already had some sort of dialogue and trust established with, and it’s been great to actually work with them so many years later. They’re legends, but – as they were 40 years ago – they’re also wonderful people.”
Grammy and Tony nominee Bareilles began rehearsing for “Jesus Christ Superstar Live in Concert” just before ending her Broadway run in “Waitress,” for which she also composed the music and lyrics. The artist behind “Brave” and “Love Song” deems “Superstar” to be “one of the greats” of musical theater: “The score has been in my life for a long time. I got introduced to it very young by my oldest sister, who was a big fan, and it’s interesting getting a chance to experience it now.”
As Mary Magdalene, Bareilles gets to add her touch to the classic song “I Don’t Know How to Love Him.” Having read a related book recently, she notes, “There’s so much that actually is kind of misleading in what gets said about her. It feels like a great privilege that I get to jump into this role, and it’s nice to give yourself a more complete understanding of it.”