Sometime after Tahoe Mountain Musicals did Oklahoma!, Kris Hemenway and Michael Ford Harris who were also in Pirates approached me about doing the role of Jesus in Jesus Christ Superstar. They wanted to put it on at the Pioneer Center for the Performing Arts in Reno. Since that was one of my dream roles I certainly couldn't turn down that opportunity. I don't recall if we were rehearsing at the same time I was doing Camelot with Western Nevada, but since it was only a couple months later, I assume we were. They also asked if I would do the vocal direction.
We had gotten a fair amount of interest from the local Reno media. I think this was one of the largest collections of promo articles for a show for which I'd saved copies. The following are some of them.
We opened on June 30 and the next day in his review for the Reno Gazette-Journal, Jack Neal was fairly critical of the show, though he was kind to me.
The show did well enough that Kris and Mike added a second weekend. In hindsight that was probably a mistake because it's difficult to get the additional publicity out, so the numbers were not as good. Wayne Melton gave us a piece in the RGJ and related an accident where Shannon Colhoun had been bitten by a dog, and also a hilarious incident that occurred while we were doing promo photos. I had needed to use the restroom, but the Pioneer wouldn't let me, because they thought I was a homeless person. Jake Armer, who was also a DJ, had mentioned it on air. The anecdote later found its way into the Catholic Digest (Jan 1995: 55).
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