Lyric Opera of Chicago is so confident that tickets for its spring 2018 production of Jesus Christ Superstar will be in high demand, it’s putting them on sale a year ahead of time. Lyric’s JCS doesn’t have its first performance until April 27, 2018, but you can lock down your seats starting this Thursday, March 9, at 10am, online, at the box office or on the phone (312-827-5600).
Lyric’s production, staged by Olivier Award winner Timothy Sheader, will be based on his 2016 production at Regent’s Park Open Air Theatre, which Time Out London’s theater critic Andrzej Lukowski described as “both ruggedly masculine and flamboyantly fabulous at the same time, without overt contradiction or knowingness.”
The Andrew Lloyd Webber piece will be Lyric’s first rock opera, but it’s the sixth consecutive spring entry in the company’s Musical Initiative, which between 2013 and 2016 brought the Rodgers and Hammerstein shows Oklahoma!, The Sound of Music, Carousel and The King and I to the Civic Opera House stage. This spring, Lyric dips into the Lerner and Loewe catalog with My Fair Lady, opening April 28. (Before launching the official initiative, Lyric staged Jerome Kern and Oscar Hammerstein II’s Show Boat in February 2012.)
Don’t want to wait a year for Superstar? Aurora’s Paramount Theatre announced casting yesterday for its own production, opening next month.
Want more? Sign up here to stay in the know.