Tensions run high when a revolution hangs in the balance.\u00a0<\/p>\n
In a rehearsal room beneath The 5th Avenue Theatre, the fire in Judas\u2019 eyes isn\u2019t hatred or hostility; it\u2019s desperation boiling toward rage. How can Jesus be getting distracted?\u00a0<\/p>\n
Cameron Miles Lavi-Jones, known to Seattle rock fans as the frontman of King Youngblood, watches as Jesus of Nazareth (local actor Alexander Kilian) follows the gentle lead of Mary Magdalene, played by Molly Sides, lead singer of Seattle rock band Thunderpussy.\u00a0<\/p>\n
This trio stars in The 5th\u2019s May 2-17 production of \u201cJesus Christ Superstar,\u201d colliding their different creative sensibilities in pursuit of explosive art.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cI wanted to make (a production) that felt like it was for here and for now,\u201d said The 5th\u2019s Executive and Artistic Director Bill Berry, who helms the production. Marrying Seattle\u2019s musical theater talent with its deep rock-music bench, he said, felt like a natural pairing for this show with legit rock roots.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Now these artists, along with a talented creative team and ensemble cast that includes Mari Nelson, Mark Siano and Cassi Q Kohl, are fomenting revolutions big and small, onstage and off. By pushing one another to new points of artistic bravery and building bridges between local art scenes, they\u2019re working to make both a great show and a stronger cultural community.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cI feel like Molly and I are ambassadors to bridge some of the gaps that I’ve always wanted to see bridged, not just in the Seattle music scene but the larger Seattle art scene,\u201d Lavi-Jones said. \u201cI said yes because I knew I was going to be in a room of good people doing important things, and that’s what I want to do.\u201d<\/p>\n
In the beginning\u00a0<\/h2>\n
Andrew Lloyd Webber and Tim Rice\u2019s rock musical, which traces the last week in the life of Jesus Christ, began as a 1970 concept album featuring Deep Purple\u2019s Ian Gillan as Jesus, Murray Head as Judas and Yvonne Elliman as Mary Magdalene.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The album tanked in the U.K. but took off in the U.S., and reached No. 1 on the U.S. Billboard top albums chart in 1971. A theatrical version debuted on Broadway that same year, and a popular 1973 film version directed by Norman Jewison solidified the show\u2019s place in pop culture.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The sound is ’70s rock, but the story is, obviously, much older.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201c(\u2018Superstar\u2019) is very much about Jesus as a man,\u201d Kilian said. \u201cAnd from that perspective, it’s a lot easier to attach the fear and anxiety and stress of being a person in the public eye, having a lot of pressure on you, or feeling like you’re an impostor in a room. That\u2019s applicable to everyone, regardless of the level at which you’ve experienced it.\u201d<\/p>\n
Kilian, who captivated audiences at The 5th as Moritz in \u201cSpring Awakening,\u201d said his favorite musicals \u201care musicals that don’t sound like musicals.\u201d Even in rehearsal, this trio\u2019s individual vocal textures weave together into something rich, wild and compelling. Rock music celebrates unique voices, whereas modern musical theater trains toward ensemble-ready sameness in tone and timbre.<\/p>\n
And \u201cSuperstar\u201d requires some vocals<\/em>. In the show\u2019s first solo number, \u201cHeaven on Their Minds,\u201d Judas hurls warnings with a powerful rock wail. Mary must convey overpowering devotion that belies the melodic simplicity of \u201cI Don\u2019t Know How to Love Him,\u201d and Jesus\u2019 song \u201cGethsemane (I Only Want to Say)\u201d remains one of the toughest tenor rock ballads in musical theater.<\/p>\n Sides hasn\u2019t done a traditional musical since high school, but she\u2019s been commanding stages since forming her band in 2014. \u201cIt’s all one,\u201d she said, of her life as a performer. \u201cWhen I started Thunderpussy, it wasn’t just about the music, it was about the experience, the theatrics, the fun, the invitation to just disappear for a moment.\u201d<\/p>\n Even so, early in the \u201cSuperstar\u201d rehearsal process, she definitely had moments of \u201cAm I supposed to be here?\u201d Sides said. But Berry and her castmates were all so encouraging, building a new artistic vocabulary and pushing her and Lavi-Jones to give their most audacious, risk-taking performances.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cIt’s such a great reminder in life to just keep trying \u2014 and keep failing \u2014 to find the thing that works and that connects to you,\u201d Sides said. \u201cThis process feels like it’s not just a play, it’s about how we can connect as a whole new ensemble and community.\u201d\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n For Lavi-Jones, figuring out how to inhabit Judas has come with a lot of catharsis.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cDoing this has given me an opportunity to reclaim a lot of experiences, not just of being wildly misunderstood \u2014 and there’s a real power in getting close to those emotions and humanizing them \u2014 but in themes of brotherhood and trying to do something so much bigger than yourself,\u201d he said.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n And musical theater is, definitionally, about building something bigger than yourself. After coming from the music world, which relies heavily on self-producing and a DIY attitude, seeing the sheer number of people who come together to make a show happen was a humbling experience for Sides.<\/p>\n \u201cSo many people make magic behind the curtain,\u201d she said. \u201cThat’s why these spaces are so important, where all of our personal experiences can come together and (we can) have conversations for the first time about a story that now belongs to all of us.\u201d<\/p>\n Particular challenges come with telling a story that so many people know, or think they know. But for the show\u2019s characters, the ending of \u201cJesus Christ Superstar\u201d isn\u2019t inevitable.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cNobody in this story knows how it turns out,\u201d Berry said. Nobody knows for sure if Jesus is the messiah or not, even Jesus himself, but they\u2019re all dedicated to changing the world for the better. \u201cI think of it as \u2014 and I mean this in a good way \u2014 the soap opera behind the scenes of a revolution,\u201d he said. \u201cAnd the politics and interpersonal things happening that are getting in the way of the movement or helping the movement succeed.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n Stories of social unrest and uprising possess perennial relevance, as does the pairing of rock music and rebellion, but both feel particularly potent right now.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cPowerful art is supposed to reflect the times we’re in, and requires people to think about their own role in the ways we’re trying to change the world,\u201d Lavi-Jones said. \u201cMaybe it’s looking after your neighbor a little bit differently. Maybe it’s having tough conversations with people you love. But I\u2019ll know that I’ve done my job if people walk away thinking about how many different lanes there are to a revolution.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n \u2018 The preceding article may include information circulated by third parties \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n \u2018 Some details of this article were extracted from the following source www.yakimaherald.com \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Tensions run high when a revolution hangs in the balance.\u00a0 In a rehearsal room beneath The 5th Avenue Theatre, the fire in Judas\u2019 eyes isn\u2019t hatred or hostility; it\u2019s desperation boiling toward rage. How can Jesus be getting distracted?\u00a0 Cameron Miles Lavi-Jones, known to Seattle rock fans as the frontman of King Youngblood, watches as […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":2381911,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[25172],"tags":[21741],"class_list":["post-2381910","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-entertainment","tag-entertainment"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/\u2018Jesus-Christ-Superstar-at-5th-Avenue-Theatre-has-Seattle-rock.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2381910","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2381910"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2381910\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2381912,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2381910\/revisions\/2381912"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2381911"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2381910"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2381910"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2381910"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}Art as revolution<\/h2>\n