Jesus Christ Superstar

“If he’s a man, whether or not he’s a god, he has to suffer. He has to have doubts. [Jesus] was a human being. He had good points and bad points. He had strengths and weaknesses.” 

—Tim Rice (qtd in Sarah Bahr, “‘Jesus Christ Superstar’ at 50: What Was the Buzz?,” New York Times, October 12, 2021). 

Is Jesus Christ Superstar a retelling of arguably the most famous narrative in human history, or is it a study on the pitfalls of celebrity culture? For lyricist Tim Rice and composer Andrew Lloyd Webber, the concept album-turned-musical retelling of the last week of Jesus’s life, told from the perspective of Judas Iscariot, offers a modern, rock-concert representation of Jesus of Nazareth’s humanity. 

Famously, from the outset of its original Broadway run, Jesus Christ Superstar met with significant controversy. Multiple religious groups protested outside of the theater and released public statements decrying and condemning the show for what they believed was a blasphemous and disrespectful depiction of Jesus Christ. Jesus Christ Superstar was not the first, nor would it be the last, theatrical retelling of Jesus’s life, conviction, crucifixion, and resurrection that invited public condemnation. The controversy itself is understandable when theatrical representation seems to humanize Jesus in a way that denies or ignores his divinity. But it is the conceit that drives the show’s message. By transforming Jesus into a modern rockstar, he becomes an entity a modern audience can understand: a celebrity put on a pedestal then violently ripped down from it. The depiction is what makes the show both universally relatable and objectionable: our protagonist inspires a movement and ideology, garnering him a pre-Common Era equivalent of viral fame that eventually inspires doubt, fear, and skepticism. For Rice and Webber, celebrity is an irrevocably human experience. Mary Magdalene sings, “He’s not a king, he’s just the same/As anyone I know/He scares me so.” Perhaps this is what makes Jesus Christ Superstar both appealing and appalling: by bringing Jesus into the 20th and 21st centuries and humanizing him, he stands as an example of our worst tendencies, including the cruelty we can impose upon those we love and admire because of our own anxieties and insecurities. 

—Dr. Helen Lewis-Michelson, associate professor of theater, production dramaturg

ACT I
1 Overture
2 “Heaven on Their Minds” – Judas
3 “What’s the Buzz” – Ensemble
4 “Strange Thing, Mystifying” – Judas
5 “Everything’s Alright” – Mary Magdalene, Ensemble
6 “This Jesus Must Die” – Caiaphas, Ensemble
7 “Hosanna” – Ensemble
8 “Simon Zealotes/Poor Jerusalem” – Ensemble, Simon
9 “Pilate’s Dream” – Pilate
10 “The Temple” – Ensemble
11 “Everything Alright Reprise” – Mary Magdalene
12 “I Don’t Know How to Love Him” – Mary Magdalene
13 “Damned for All Time/Blood Money” – Judas, Annas, Caiaphas, Ensemble

ACT II
1 “The Last Supper” – Apostles, Jesus
2 “Gethsemane” – Jesus
3 “The Arrest” – Peter, Apostles, Ensemble
4 “Peter’s Denial” – Ensemble
5 “Pilate and Christ/Herod’s Song” – Pilate, Annas, Ensemble
6 “Could We Start Again, Please” – Mary Magdalene, Ensemble
7 “Judas’s Death” – Judas, Caiaphas
21 Trial by Pilate/39 Lashes – Pilate, Caiaphas, Jesus
22 Superstar – Judas, Ensemble
23 Crucifixion
24 John 19:41