‘Jesus Christ Superstar’ Tour Starring Johnny Rotten Abruptly Canceled
The touring production of “Jesus Christ Superstar” starring the Sex Pistols‘ Johnny Rotten and Incubus‘ Brandon Boyd has been abruptly called to a halt. The New York Times reports that the production company S2BN announced on Friday that the “Jesus Christ Superstar Arena Spectacular Tour” was canceled and that all purchased tickets would be refunded.
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Rotten (a.k.a. John Lydon) was cast as King Herod in the Andrew Lloyd Webber-Tim Rice rock opera, alongside Michelle Williams of Destiny’s Child as Mary Magdalene, Boyd as Judas, ‘NSync’s JC Chasez as Pontius Pilate and British reality TV winner Ben Forster as Jesus. The cast had been rehearsing in New Orleans on Thursday, and performances were set to start on June 9th at the city’s Lakefront Arena. The tour, which was scheduled to hit massive venues like the Staples Center in Los Angeles and New York City’s Madison Square Garden, would have been the show’s largest since its debut in 1971.
In an interview with Rolling Stone after the production was announced in April, Boyd said that he was thrilled to be a part of the production. “I grew up on Andrew Lloyd Webber’s classics and never imagined I would be playing a role in one, let alone with such an incredibly diverse cast of players,” he said. Like several other cast members, Brandon took to Twitter on Friday evening to express his disappointment. “I got fired from #JesusChristSuperstar today….but so did the rest of the cast so we’re all sad together,” he wrote. “Yeah, it’s true. Tour cancelled”