- June 12, 2025
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“Jesus Christ Superstar” has risen on the Asolo Rep stage. After a gestation as a 1970 concept album, Andrew Lloyd Webber and Tim Rice’s power-chord passion play was first staged in 1971. It’s been resurrected so many times since then that it’s easy to forget the original concept.
Rice and Webber’s rock opera parallels the fanatical fans of contemporary rock stars with the cult of personality surrounding an itinerant Jewish preacher in Biblical times. In AD 33, Jesus is a hit with the Judean crowd and the power structure hates it.
For different motives, the Pharisees and the Roman occupation forces decide to terminate him. With the help of one of Jesus’ displeased disciples, they arrest Jesus in the Garden of Gethsemane.
After that, he’s mocked, tortured, publicly humiliated and nailed to the cross. That’s Jesus’ fate. What happens next is a question of faith. The musical follows the New Testament timeline right up to the crucifixion.
“Jesus Christ Superstar” is a tightly written, fast-paced show. Rice and Webber’s songs reflect the AM radio airplay standards of 1970; they average from three to four minutes. Unlike some contemporary musicals I won’t name, it doesn’t go on and on. It says what it has to say. And then shuts up.
Josh Rhodes’ direction and choreography reflects that economy. His direction is focused and punchy. He gets in, gets it done and gets out. Each song unfolds in a scene. Each scene has a character, an emotion and a question.
Rhodes keeps you crystal clear on the decisions they face and what’s at stake. His choreography is never by the numbers. He keeps the ensemble moving, but their movement always serves the story. One song might be angry and angular, another might be loose and sensual. The actors’ dance always flows organically from the nature of each song. It’s never tacked on.
This revolutionary rock opera is complex, with a lot of moving parts. It's a high level of difficulty. But the lead actors can all dance, act and sing at a Broadway level. The trinity of Jesus, Judas and Mary Magdalene has a volatile chemistry of faith, fear, love and desire. The actors make you feel that seething emotional power.
Jesse Nager’s Jesus has one sandaled foot in this world and the other in the next. His all-too-human Messiah has doubts, fears, questions, outbursts of anger and boundary issues. Is Jesus drinking the Kool-Aid and buying the crowd’s message that he’s God in human form? Who does he think he is, anyway?
Heath Saunders’ Judas functions as a stand-in for modern audiences. The story’s told from his point of view. What’s his story? Don’t ask Judas. He’s confused about his own motives.
At first, he tries to bring Jesus down to earth with practical advice — and always gets put down. What’s his beef with Jesus? Irrational jealousy? A rational fear of Roman reprisal? In the end, he betrays Jesus. Why? Judas accuses God of setting him up to be the bad guy who got Jesus crucified. Is that the divine plan — or is Judas just shifting blame? Once again, Judas doesn’t know his own mind.
If Judas is the prickly voice of common sense, Sarah Kay’s Mary Magdalene is a soothing balm to Jesus’ wounded soul. She’s mesmerizing in “I Don’t Know How to Love Him” and “Everything’s Alright.” She’s a worldly woman who’s been transformed by Jesus’ out-of-this-world personality. What she feels is beyond romantic love. It scares the hell out of her.
The supporting cast is also up to the Biblical task. Two highlights …
Ann Morrison’s King Herod steals the show with a shrill, malevolent glamour in “King Herod’s Song.” Instead of the typical campy character (a la Josh Mostel in the 1973 film adaptation), she leans into the song’s Roaring Twenties vibe.
She sits on a gilded throne like the queen (or king) of all flappers, with a pile of louche admirers below. Her sneering character wants Jesus to perform like a dancing monkey. Prove to me that you’re no fool! Walk across my swimming pool! Morrison totally sells it like some evil Betty Boop.
Tally Sessions’ Pontius Pilate is tough, but he’s more bureaucrat than bully. He’s in charge of a troublesome province in the Roman empire, but Judea’s a pain in the toga. He’d rather not crucify Jesus, but he doesn’t want to lose his mid-level job. He washes his hands of the whole sad affair and gets on with it.
Jenny Kim-Godfrey’s music direction is up to the hairpin turns of the show’s songs. The band’s out of sight and always in your mind. Jonathan Godfrey plays a mean electric guitar on the rock opera’s iconic riffs.
The show looks as good as it sounds. The design is visually striking and original. Adam Koch’s rocky set evokes the stone-cold brutality of the Roman Empire and the arid, desert environment of Judea. Messiahs seem to multiply in these parched places. (“Dune” comes to mind.)
Alejo Vietti avoids the cliché costumes of past productions. No sword-and-sandals. No first-century hippies in tie-dye shirts and bellbottoms. He finds his own take — and colors outside the lines of what’s been done before.
Cory Pattak’s lighting alternates from noonday clarity to twilight chiaroscuro. Illumination is instrumentation — a counterpoint to the rocking score. Nicely done.
The greatest story ever told has been told in many ways. In 1971, telling it as a rock opera was a very new way. Rice did a brilliant job finding a through-line of story and character in the Biblical text — and retelling that story with a counterculture sensibility. The characters’ motives aren’t simplistic in his lyrics. And they’re bursting with questions throughout the show.
What’s the buzz? Tell me what’s happening!
What is truth? Is truth unchanging law?
Jesus Christ, Superstar. Do you think you’re what they say you are?
This messianic musical doesn’t hand you the answers.
It’s not a rocking revival trying to convert you. But it’s not rock-therapy to cure true believers from the “God delusion,” either. The show’s nuanced, ambiguous, multilayered and anything but dogmatic. It takes you to the crossroads …
Where you go from there is up to you.
