17
May/14

TICKET ALERT: JESUS CHRIST SUPERSTAR ARENA SPECTACULAR

17
May/14

JESUS CHRIST SUPERSTAR ARENA SPECTACULAR
Madison Square Garden
Seventh Ave. at 33rd St.
Tuesday, August 5, $64.10 – $304, 8:00
www.jesuschristsuperstar.com
www.thegarden.com

Andrew Lloyd Webber and Tim Rice’s Jesus Christ Superstar will be treading on hallowed ground when it comes to Madison Square Garden for a one-night-only performance on August 5. Pope John Paul II visited the World’s Most Famous Arena in 1979, and the Messiah himself, Mark Messier, lifted the Holy Grail — er, the Stanley Cup — on Garden ice twenty years ago next month. The rock opera, which opened on Broadway in October 1971, was made into a film in 1973, and was resurrected by Des McAnuff on the Great White Way in a rousing revival in 2012, will start touring the U.S. in a massive version billed as an “Arena Spectacular,” a traveling road show with a cast and crew of 150 that will arrive in 12 articulated buses and 7 sleeper buses. And what a cast, reaching near-biblical proportions with Sex Pistols and PiL punk legend Johnny Rotten playing King Herod; instead of screaming “God save the queen / She ain’t no human being” or “I am an antichrist / Don’t know what I want,” Mr. Lydon will be belting out to the King of the Jews: “So You are the Christ / You’re the great Jesus Christ / Prove to me that You’re divine / Change my water into wine.” The production, directed by Laurence Connor (Les Misérables, The Phantom of the Opera) and choreographed by Kevan Allen, also features Incubus lead vocalist Brandon Boyd as Judas Iscariot, former *NSYNC star and appropriately initialed JC Chasez as Pontius Pilate, Former Destiny’s Child member Michelle Williams as Mary Magdalene, and British actor-singer Ben Forster (no, not the dude who plays Driver Perkins on Thomas the Tank Engine) returning to the title role he won on a reality TV show. (Seriously, we didn’t make any of this up, not a single word.) Ticket prices range from $64.10 for the cheap seats to $304 for the Superstar Premium VIP Experience, which comes with a photo-op meet-and-greet with at least two lead cast members, a preshow party, a dedicated concierge, and more. Everybody, now: “Hosanna Heysanna Sanna Sanna Ho / Sanna Hey Sanna Ho Sanna….”