What’s the buzz? The Jewish Theater Ensemble is staging “Jesus Christ Superstar?” “Try not to get worried,” says the musical’s director, Communication sophomore Travis Greisler. Everything’s alright. Afterall, Jesus was Jewish too.
“I dream big, and I’ve lucked out that our entire team likes to dream big with me,” Greisler says. Involving more than 70 students, “Jesus Christ Superstar” is the largest show the Jewish Theater Ensemble has ever put on. The plot roughly follows the last week of Jesus’ earthly life, and some have wondered why a Jewish theater group chose to take on what producer and Communication senior Cara Lewanda calls the “Gospel according to Andrew Lloyd Webber.”
“I think this could be the most Jewish show JTE has ever done,” Lewanda says. “How many other musicals take place in Israel? The story is about Jews … but we settled on ‘JCS’ for a lot of reasons, and one of the main ones is that at the end of the day this is a fun show.”
Andrew Lloyd Webber’s raucous rock opera, and his second collaboration with lyricist Tim Rice, opened in New York in 1971 and has since seen several revivals. “Jesus Christ Superstar” is Greisler’s directorial debut on campus. Griesler began his musical theater career as an 8-year-old with a role in the “JCS” chorus of a community production. Two years later, Greisler starred on Broadway in The Who’s rock opera “Tommy.”
Last winter Greisler played the painted emcee of the Kit Kat Club in “Cabaret,” the Jewish Theater Ensemble’s most successful show to date. “I knew I wanted to direct something this year,” he says. “And my goal was to top ‘Cabaret.'”
Griesler pitched “Jesus Christ Superstar” to the Ensemble’s executive board last spring to unanimous approval. Their enthusiasm was partly due to the unlikelihood of Greisler’s proposal — not in spite of it, says the Ensemble’s artistic director, Communication senior Dave Holstein.
“Our mission statement says that we do shows that ‘fall within the resonance of the Jewish experience,'” he says. “Doing Jewish theater doesn’t only mean doing shows about Jews, with Jewish characters and about Passover. It’s about doing shows that affect you differently because you’re Jewish.”
Apart from its size and subject, the logistical demands of “Jesus Christ Superstar” are intricate enough to turn a whole production team to prayer. Rice and Lloyd Webber initially confined their product to a concept album, leaving the libretto’s later adaptation a largely ad hoc affair. “There is absolutely no book for this show,” says stage manager and Communication sophomore Emily Comisar. “When you get the rights to it, they send you a score, and that’s it. This means that there is no telling dialogue, no stage directions, no author’s note.”
Aiming to depict the Jewish situation during Christ’s lifetime, Greisler has taken pains to hew his production as close to history as possible. The immovable set designed for Norris’ Louis Room is right out of 33 C.E. It includes a massive colonnaded temple, spanned by a balcony and accessible by pairs of doors and staircases. “Its multiple levels can really be transformed by blocking and choreography into anything that we need it to,” Comisar says of the set’s benefits.
While stately and serviceable, this arrangement poses a problem for the show’s music director, Music sophomore Joel Esher. The only room for his 13-piece orchestra — an electrified rock rhythm section garlanded with woodwinds, brass and reeds — is backstage. The singers have to look for their cues in monitors at their feet, which will display a close-up of Esher’s baton.
“Jesus Christ Superstar” tells a story with an ending the audience knows before the show begins, but its star, Jesus, also foresees his fate. “As a character in any other play you don’t know what’s going to happen; you’re not supposed to, but as an actor of course you do, because you’ve read the whole script,” says Communication junior Dan Kohler, who plays Jesus. “I’m playing someone who knows what’s going to happen, and I know what’s going to happen, so it comes down to finding those moments where Jesus realizes that.”
As Judas, Weinberg senior Jim Fenner has had to find his ground between Kohler and Communication junior Allie Lind, who plays Mary Magdalene. “I have to portray this guy who’s the asshole of all history and make him defensible,” Fenner says. “Rice gives a lot of depth to the character in his lyrics, and I hope I do a good job of getting across what good friends Jesus and Judas were and how Mary comes between them.”
But Fenner faces another, more practical contingency. “I have to kiss Dan on the cheek at one point, and he’s grown this huge beard for the part,” he says. “The first few times I tried I got whiskers up my nose, so I just have to get used to not sneezing when I do it.”
“Jesus Christ Superstar” will be playing in the Louis Room at Norris University Center Thursday at 8 p.m., Friday and Saturday at 8 p.m. and 11 p.m. Tickets are available at the door and at www.jewsonstage.com.4
Medill junior Thomas Berenato is a PLAY writer. He can be reached at [email protected].
