By SHARON EBERSON
Pittsburgh Musical Theater’s 2025 vision for Jesus Christ Superstar goes back to the future, in the person of Lucas Fedele.
The connective creativity and respect is there, rooted in the PMT conservatory community and the theater company that was founded by Ken Gargaro, continuing under Colleen Doyno. It is also evident in the team of Danny Herman and Rocker Verastique, and now Fedele, who is leading the production in a new direction.
Over the years, the rock opera by Andrew Lloyd Webber and Tim Rice, a recurring staple of PMT during the Easter season, has evolved. Initially staged with Gargaro’s vision, punctuated by the use of Renaissance tableaus, Superstar played in the intimate Gargaro Theater in 2022. With Herman and Verastique at the helm, the show was performed with a decidedly urban backdrop.
This year, Fedele is taking the lead while working with “my theater dads,” as he calls Herman and Verastique, for PMT’s Jesus Christ Superstar at the Byham Theater, April 3-13, 2025.
The Fox Chapel High School and Point Park COPA alum grew up at Pittsburgh Musical Theater, and has been seen in may PMT shows as well as more than a dozen Pittsburgh CLO productions.
With Pittsburgh as bookends, Fedele left for New York, Chicago, Washington, D.C., and two national tours (Hello Dolly!, Irving Berlin’s White Christmas) before the pandemic hit. During the shutdown, he and his wife, Carnegie Mellon alum Zanny Laird (she’ll be in PMT’s Waitress next), took stock of their lives in New York and decided Pittsburgh was where they wanted to be.
Fedele noted that his Pittsburgh theater family has included Lenora Nemetz, Tome´ Cousin and Billy Porter, and he lists the part of John in Jesus Christ Superstar, directed by Gargaro, as the earliest production on his resume, followed by the ensemble of a Herman-directed Grease!
“What’s really wonderful about PMT and about the educational arm and focus of the mission is that there are generations of people who have connections to the show and to this company,” Fedele said by phone, between rehearsals last week. “I call Danny and Rocker my theater dads because they raised me, and now we’re at the point where I have people to whom I’m a mentor, who also are connected to this show and connected to the company, imagining it together. So right there, you have a tremendous personal investment and a tremendous personal connection to it.”
One of those connections is Fedele’s “theatrical sibling,” Treasure Treasure, the Pittsburgh actor who starred in Quantum Theatre’s epic Hamlet at Carrie Furnaces in 2023. She will play Judas in this production, with Brecken Newton Farrell as Jesus, Broadway veteran Paul Binotto as Pilate, and Kamilah Lay as Mary Magdalene.
For this production, the process started as a return to the JCS origins, as a concept album.
“The sense we get, around the original album in 1970, is that it feels like a rock concert,” Fedele said. “It’s telling the Bible story, an ancient story, an important and popular story with important and popular, energetic music. The original thought was, ‘What if Jesus was a rock star?,’ and that’s where we’re going with this.”
His approach is “music-forward,” with the actors as musicians – at least 12 cast members playing 16 instruments – communing musically with the four-piece band.
For example, Fedele recalled first seeing Lay playing violin in Once, during PMT’s 2023 season.
“I was struck with the beauty of her playing the violin, but also her movement quality and her dramatic connection,” Fedele said. “I think that Kamilah is one of the prime examples of how this Superstar is going to feel different, because she brings a sensitivity and a musicianship to it. And in addition to playing the violin, it’s truly a part of her as an artist.”
Fedele’s approach has been to emphasize connections, artist to artist, and performer to audience.
“I have encouraged everyone to find unity so that we are able to connect to the audience and have the audience connect with each other,” he said. “I see the result already. I mean, I’m surprised every moment in rehearsal by this wonderful cast of beautiful and talented and intellectually curious and brave people. I’m always inspired by new things that we find, but the result of all of that is a production with muscularity and viscerality that seems so honest and so immediate, that it is a special experience, when theater achieves all that it actually can.”
Fedele, while in the thick of preparations for Superstar, noted that his homecoming hasn’t always been easy – the life of an artist rarely is. He described his recollection of the saplings being planted in Mellon Square, where now there are “25-foot tall trees,” or the feeling of going back to the playground where you romped as a child, and realizing how much you, and your goals, have changed.
“I’m extremely fortunate to work exclusively in theater in this town, and I will never take that for granted because I know it’s rare,” Fedele said of his return to Pittsburgh. “But because of that, ever since I moved back, I’ve had five or six jobs, sometimes in the same day.”
Fedele acknowledged any struggles as a fact of economics and scheduling, “and how we support the arts in the country,” and in no way diminishing the warm welcome he has felt from the Pittsburgh theater community.
“Working from a sense of true purpose, I have found energy in the work, and it’s actually just been really wonderful to be home,” he said. “I am grateful to Danny and Rocker that they accepted me back with open arms, and Colleen flung the door wide open for me to come back to PMT, even though you don’t really ever leave PMT.”
TICKETS AND DETAILS
Pittsburgh Musical Theater presents Jesus Christ Superstar, April 3-13, 2025, at the Byham Theater, Downtown. Tickets: https://pmt.culturaldistrict.org/production/96718/jesus-christ-superstar or call 412-456-6666.
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