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Brandon Boyd Michelle Williams GMA Screengrab - H 2014
ABCJesus Christ Superstar is hitting the road.
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Boyd and Williams, who play Judas Iscariot and Mary Magdalene, took to the Good Morning America stage on Friday to make the announcement.
Chasez will play Pontius Pilate, with The Sex Pistols’ John Lydon as King Herod. Ben Forster will reprise the lead role of Jesus, which he played in last year’s U.K. and Australia arena tours, after winning the part on Lloyd Webber’s reality competition show, Superstar. The show is directed by Laurence Connor, currently represented on Broadway as co-director of the Les Miserables revival.
“It’s completely new, and it’s incredible,” said Boyd, before performing “Superstar” with Williams on GMA. “It’s an arena rock show.”
The tour is presented by veteran concert promoter Michael Cohl, who was lead producer on the controversial $75 million Broadway show Spider-Man: Turn Off the Dark, which closed in January at a loss, despite running almost three years and grossing $212.4 million.
A ground-breaking rock retelling of the Gospels’ account of the last week in the life of Jesus of Nazareth, Jesus Christ Superstar has been revived multiple times on Broadway since its 1971 premiere, most recently in 2012. That production drew a number of strong reviews, particularly for the vocal performances. But it failed to build an audience, running only three months and grossing just under $11 million.
However, tour producers are clearly banking on the durability of the iconic title and the box office power of a fresh cast of music-industry recruits, each of whom brings his or her own fan base. For aging punks nostalgic about their hard-core heydays, the idea of seeing Johnny Rotten prancing through the vaudevillian show-stopper “Herod’s Song” will be hard to resist.
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Tickets are immediately available for American Express card members, and go on sale to the general public on April 11.
See below for full tour schedule:
Watch the performance below:
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