Jesus Christ Superstar Live in Concert is an ambitious live television event set to air on NBC Easter Sunday, April 1, 2018.  This classic rock opera, created by theater legends Andrew Lloyd Webber (music) and Tim Rice (lyrics), hit Broadway in 1971 and became an immediate hit whose popularity has endured over the decades. 

The cast for NBC's production includes stars from the worlds of music, theater, television, and film:

• John Legend as Jesus Christ
• Sara Bareilles as Mary Magdalene
• Brandon Victor Dixon as Judas Iscariot
• Alice Cooper as King Herod
• Norm Lewis as Caiaphas
• Ben Daniels as Pontius Pilate
• Jason Tam as Peter
• Jin Ha as Annas
• Erik Gronwall as Simon Zealotes

USTownhall.com speaks with Executive Producers NEIL MERON and MARC PLATT:

USTH: Neil and Mark, you've spoken previously about how Alice Cooper was the right choice for the role of King Herod because he would bring that rock authenticity and outrageous persona to the production.  Also in the cast we have John Legend as Jesus and Sarah Bareilles as Mary Magdalene among others.  Can you just walk us through what they bring to their roles and why you feel each is such a right fit?

Marc Platt:  John Legend is not only one of the great pop stars and personalities of our time now but he has the voice that is distinctive and singular. And we all know it and we're all familiar with it. And so to have the role of Jesus sung by that masterful vocalist and of course, he appeared in La La Land among other things. [John Legend] will be a great joy and will do justice to the challenge of that score and that particular role.

And the same thing can be said of course of Sara [Bareilles] who we all know both from her vocal career, her pop star career, her now Broadway career both as a writer and appearing on stage. So to hear her voice sing those gorgeous melodies that we're all so familiar with and have lasted through time it's joyous and it's exciting and you really lean into it. And Neil why don't you go through some of the others?

Neil Meron:  Sure. And regarding Brandon Victor Dixon we spent an inordinately long time auditing many, many actors to play Judas. And Brandon came in very, very early and he was always the one to beat. But we did a lot of due diligence because there were a lot of people that want to play that role. And Brandon just has this incredible quality not only vocally, but he's also a Tony nominated actor. He's coming off of Hamilton and so it just seemed to make sense for this particular project. And regarding Ben Daniels he's one of the finest actors in the English-speaking world mostly stage and more well-known in the UK than here. But we wanted a really complex actor, somebody that can take on the role of Pilate because it is such a conflicted role. So we reached out to Ben and he did a vocal audition for all of us.

And all of these people had to be approved by Andrew Lloyd Webber and Tim Rice. So, when we presented them our choices we had to make sure that we as the creative team really endorsed and knew that we were not going to be turned down because we loved all these actors that we've chosen.

John Legend stars as Jesus Christ  [Photo Credit: NBC]	Sara Bareilles as Mary Magdalene  [Photo Credit: NBC}	Alice Cooper as King Herod  [Photo Credit: NBC]

Neil Meron:  Well,  that can be a question for both Marc and myself because we — me and Craig Zadan and Marc — we're the only producers that do these live musicals, which is kind of a very small club to be in. And Marc actually shot a film at this venue that we're shooting at in Brooklyn which is the Marcy [Avenue] Amory. So he knew the rawness of the space, which is what we were looking for just in terms of the presentation of Jesus Christ Superstar.

We wanted to bring it back. We wanted to strip it of a lot of theatricality and go to the essence of [it] and have some theatrical staging mixed in and just the rawness of that space and the idea that we can create this environment there just made sense to all of us.

USTH:  And Marc, what are your thoughts?

Marc Platt: It's a live event. We want to deliver both the story of Jesus Christ Superstar but also the immersive experience of being at a concert so that you the viewer at home watching on his or her TV or his or her screen feels like they are immersed in this live event concert.

So to find a space that has a very urban kind of raw feel that we can build a set that's like a stage but is also a set and surround it with a live audience so that you feel like you're almost in a stadium as it were is what we're going for. And that excitement and that fervor that you feel when you've been in a concert is what we're trying to deliver here in during the telecast.

USTH:  Regarding the music, are all the songs from the original stage production going to be in your production or are there going to be any new songs or songs removed?

Neil Meron:  Right now — and we expect it to stay this way — everything is intact from the way that Andrew [Lloyd Webber] and Tim [Rice] wrote it.

USTH:  Finally, with these productions, some of them have had exterior scenes and interior scenes. Is this production all interior or will there be exterior also?

Marc Platt:  This is all on the concert stage as it were. You know, the set that we design that becomes our concert stage. So it is like in a concert in one venue. And it will feel like you're at a concert.

Thanks to Executive Producers Neil Meron and Marc Platt for speaking with us.  Jesus Christ Superstar Live in Concert airs on Sunday, April 1 on NBC.