 
‘Jesus Christ Superstar’ is ready to rise at Cabrillo Stage, but behind the scenes, all eyes turn to the (creative) dramas ahead
While he is most often remembered as the reluctant executioner of Christianity’s final prophet, this summer Pontius Pilate will bring Jesus Christ to life. With rock ’n’ roll. David Cox, a Santa Cruz native, Cabrillo College alumnus and revered theater veteran, plays the part of Pilate in what he promises will be a fresh spin on “Jesus Christ Superstar,” the classic Andrew Lloyd Webber and Tim Rice rock opera, which opens July 11 at Cabrillo Stage. Cox also directs the show. After touring the world as an opera singer, he has returned to his hometown and the company where he started his career more than 30 years ago. But, as opening night draws near, Cabrillo Theater is all abuzz behind the scenes. Welding torches blaze, sewing machines whirl and hammer strokes punctuate the breeze, as set crews work to create backdrops, wardrobe and scenery for yet another summer season at Cabrillo Stage, the community college-based production company now in it’s 27th year. The efforts of the teams bringing the company’s summer productions to life—“Forever Plaid” opened last week—are matched only by those of the construction crews working on the massive project directly across Soquel Avenue—Cabrillo’s brand new arts center. Funded by Santa Cruz County taxpayers and private donors, the undertaking costs approximately $68 million and includes a 600-seat, four-story main stage, a 450-seat recital hall and a 200-seat black box theater. The complex will also house cutting edge 2-D and 3-D art facilities along with high-tech audio recording studios. 
The company’s new producing artistic director, Jon Nordgren, also a Santa Cruz native, looks to maintain Cabrillo Stage’s tradition of excellence and aims to take the company to even greater heights next spring when the state of the art complex opens its doors. It is perhaps fitting, then, that “Jesus Christ Superstar” should come to the company this summer—as a tribute to rebirth. Nordgren, whose predecessor, Lile Cruse, was with Cabrillo Stage for 25 years, has wanted to do Jesus Christ Superstar since he took over two years ago. However, he has been held up until this season. In 2006, the director he was working with opted to do “Guys and Dolls” instead of “Superstar,” and last year he was unable to secure the licensing rights to perform the show because a touring company was performing it around the same time. “This year I can finally do it,” Nordgren says energetically. He sits in the back row of Cabrillo Theater, where the smell of sawdust fills the air. “It is a huge show, so it’s very advantageous that it is this year.” Indeed, it would seem that no other production would make more sense at this juncture. Not only is this Cabrillo Stage’s last season in the current theater, there is also the matter of Cox: the show’s director first began his theater education at Cabrillo and sang some of his first lines for Cabrillo Stage. Returning to the company he grew up in after touring the nation, Europe and Japan, Cox plans on using his expertise to revitalize “Jesus Christ Superstar” with a decidedly modern interpretation, as if foreshadowing the ultra modern complex slated for completion next May. Both Cox and Nordgren exemplify one of the most enduring traits of Cabrillo Stage—its propensity to raise and keep close a loyal group of top-notch thespians. Jana Marcus, a spokeswoman for Cabrillo College, says that the company holds a special place in the hearts of many locals who have grown up either attending the company’s shows or acting in them, and says that Cox and Nordgren are both testaments to that tradition. Marcus believes that Cox’s decision to come back to perform and direct in this production “speaks very loudly of the kind of family that Cabrillo Stage has become over the years.” “People really love this company,” she says. 
Cox was 3 years old when his family moved to the area. He says the fact that he was raised by a Baptist preacher is really what sowed the seeds of his career. “Growing up as a preacher’s kid meant that I was going to sing,” he says emphatically. In high school, Cox discovered his passion for musical theater. “My choir teacher dragged me into my first show at Soquel High and I kind of caught the bug.” He was cast in Cabrillo Stage’s first production, “Chicago,” and learned the craft as he went along, paying close attention to how others worked on stage and picking up the skills that would carry him all over the world as an operatic baritone. Nordgren, too, grew up at the Cabrillo Theater and has been involved with Cabrillo Stage from its inception. Raised in the Seacliff neighborhood, he attended Mar Vista Elementary, Aptos Jr. High and Aptos High schools. He has been to more concerts and productions at Cabrillo Theater than anywhere else, and he remembers going to that first Cabrillo Stage show in 1981. “My family is really rooted here,” he says. “This theater just has a ton of meaning to me.” “I have an emotional attachment to this place because I had such good and important times here,” Cox notes. Even those who have not spent decades in the company can recognize Cabrillo Stage’s devotion to the craft. Adam Campbell, the San Jose actor cast as Jesus Christ in the show, says he feels more comfortable at Cabrillo Stage than he has anywhere else, and it is only his second show with the company. “I have worked in a lot of professional theaters and this one — there’s definitely something extremely special about this place,” he says. “The staff is phenomenal.” The leading man’s respect for Cabrillo Stage will only work to underscore his excitement for playing the part of the “Superstar.” It also doesn’t hurt that he has a background in rock music. Campbell is the frontman for the San Jose rap/rock group Mean Ol’ Lion, and he plans to use his rock ’n’ roll sensibilities to bring his character to life on stage. He says he will not attempt to incorporate any of his band’s hip-hop elements into the role, however. Instead he will play the part “traditionally straightforward.” He says that he has seen rapping attempted in other productions or “Jesus Christ Superstar” and it has always seemed “silly” to him. “Before I got involved with rock or hip-hop I did musical theater,” he says. “So, that is, first and foremost, my forte. But meshing the two (styles) has definitely brought out my personality.” Campbell’s personality is energetic and outgoing. He has a broad smile, is unabashedly confident without putting on airs and is markedly earnest as he surveys the theater, which is slowly morphing into something the whole cast, crew and audience will be able to get into. Cox is also excited about the set, which features a flight of steps that descend into the audience, effectively placing the viewer inside the production. The steps have covered the space normally occupied by the orchestra and will serve as the entrance to the temple, where much of the opera takes place. The stage itself will have multiple levels and scaffolding for the players to climb on. TV monitors and projection screens will be placed sporadically about the area to underscore the modern setting and serve to incorporate the broadcast media into Cox’s interpretation. High technology will be juxtaposed by old Roman architecture. As for the 21-piece orchestra, it will be on a raised platform, upstage from the action and hidden behind an opaque veil, which will occasionally part to include the musicians in certain scenes. Nordgren, who in addition to overseeing the entire production will also serve as orchestra conductor, believes that Cabrillo Stage’s insistence on always preserving the original instrumentation and arrangement of scores is paramount in the company’s reputation for producing excellent shows. “Nobody on Broadway, or on tour, or even regional theater companies like ours can really afford a 21-piece orchestra anymore,” he says. “It’s just too expensive. But Cabrillo Stage has a tradition of doing shows with the original orchestration—the licensed orchestrations. So, instead of scoring it down to a small group, we actually prioritize the orchestra as the most important thing.” Nordgren would not give the exact figures of the production’s budget. But he says since the state budget cuts of 2003, which affected all publicly funded higher education, Cabrillo Stage, which is funded in part by Cabrillo College, has been unable to bring in a show under budget. He is hoping this year the company will be able to stay in the black. “In almost every aspect of the production we’ve made cuts, except the art that the audience is going to see,” he adds. “What’s onstage, we’re spending just as much as we always do. I could have cut the orchestra down and saved us a bundle, but (having the full orchestration) is something that Cabrillo Stage has always done.” The production will feature eight string players, four woodwinds, four brass players and a percussionist in addition to guitar, bass, drums and piano. Nordgren says it is becoming the norm, especially with smaller houses, and even in New York, to scale down arrangements and sets to save money. Some companies nowadays will simply sing to recordings, he says with a hint of disappointment. “People come up and say, ‘You know, for half the price of what it costs to go to Broadway, you guys are as good or better than what I’ve seen on Broadway,’” Nordgren says. “And I think … what’s really moving them is this large orchestra that you just don’t even see on Broadway anymore.” Cox agrees with Nordgren, noting that Cabrillo has had the standard of having a full orchestra for all of its shows and that it will continue to do so. He adds that he, too, is disappointed to see the trend in musical theater of covering for string, wood and brass sections with synthesizers. “That’s a shame,” he says, “because you really lose the lushness and the complexity of the sound when you don’t have the actual instruments.” The director is equally pleased to be afforded the opportunity of interpreting a piece he says revolutionized musical theater by being the first to bring rock ’n’ roll music to the stage in operatic form. He especially likes the width of interpretation that can be made by individuals who are simply listening to the lyrics. Cox says that the story is written in such a way that those who believe in Christ’s divinity, as well as non-believers, all end up leaving the theater with evidence to support their respective convictions. And while his interpretation casts the show in the world of today, he wants to leave things open enough so that the audience can draw their own conclusions. Therefore, he will leave many specifics out. “I made it a big urban city,” he says. “And I made it an occupying power, and all organized religion, and the media as all the major players, rather than saying Israel or Palestine.” Cox tries to work in modern representations of characters whenever it makes sense to do so. For example, the priests will comprise many different world religions, not just Judaism; Christ’s inquisitors will often be portrayed not as politicians, but as figures of the media—microphone-wielding reporters, or a flashbulb paparazzi jubilee; King Herod will be a media mogul and later a movie producer; and when Pilate, played by Cox, is introduced for the first time, the audience will find a politician sitting behind a table in a three-piece suit, as if he were testifying before the Senate — his guard will be a secret service agent with an ear piece and dark sunglasses. All of this will be done without any modification of the original lyrics. Secular or not, those who are familiar with the story of Christ’s crucifixion may appreciate the parallels to be drawn between accounts of the martyr’s miraculous revival found in the gospels and the reinvigoration of Cabrillo College’s performing arts facilities. Currently, the Cabrillo Theater can stage only one show at a time, and even then is unable to pull off such complex productions as The Phantom of the Opera, which requires multiple stage levels. Because the theater has no fly space, all backdrops and large props required for a given show must be stored in the wings, which Nordgren says can be very restrictive. And while everybody who is involved with Cabrillo Stage will say that the theater is by no means a bad place to see a show, there is one aspect of the Cabrillo Theater that can be very bothersome. “There’s no air conditioning in there,” Marcus says of the theater, “and in the summer months it can get very hot.” The new four-story main stage, by contrast, will have air conditioning, in addition to a large fly space, trap doors, a bigger scene shop and a steeper seating configuration, which means the audience on the whole will be closer to the action. There will be two additional theaters for performing arts in the new complex — a recital hall and a small black box theater. Having more than one space to perform means that the company, as well as the school, will be able to put on more than one performance at a time. Nordgren and Marcus hope that the new complex, though expensive to construct, will ultimately save money. A prime example is the Erica Schilling Forum, a lecture hall, which every summer is converted into a small theater by building a stage on top of the area where an instructor would teach a class during the school year. This stage is then dismantled at the end of the Cabrillo Stage season to make way for classes to resume in the fall. The new facility is met with a wide range of emotion from everyone at Cabrillo Stage. For those with less attachment to Cabrillo Theater, like leading man Campbell, the new complex is mostly met with eager anticipation. “These people deserve something incredible — massive,” he says — “because of the level of production that’s being put on here. It is incomparable.” But for Nordgren and Cox, the excitement is tempered by a heavy nostalgia — one that can only be built over many, many years. “It’s really going to be sad to leave it,” Nordgren says. “It’s just a wonderful theater and I’m hoping that the college will see fit to keep it …. I’ll be crying really hard if they choose to gut it.” “You can feel it when you walk on stage,” Cox says of his connection to the building. “You can feel being in a theater that has had that much effort and emotion in it for so long.” n
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