After 10 years on the road touring with his siblings the Rankins, Canada's darlings of Celtic music, you would think Jimmy Rankin is used to a reporter asking him so many personal questions. But on this blustery Friday afternoon in early March, in the bowels of the Great Big Music recording studio along Toronto's rundown Eastern Avenue, Rankin seems uncomfortable, and sometimes standoffish in his responses, as he coddles and picks his guitar as though it were his security blanket.

Spending long days mixing music in rooms with no natural light, fuelled by cigarettes and Dr Pepper, can make anyone a little testy. However, with Rankin, the uneasiness may have more to do with the fact he is doing this media thing alone this time, without the support of his family. He has been in Toronto the past few weeks recording and mixing his first solo album, which has yet to be titled, scheduled for release June 15.

"In a way, I'm am starting out from scratch and proving myself," Rankin says in his Cape Breton accent, while seated on the studio's tan leather couch, dressed in jeans, a black sweater and boots. It is the first time one of the Rankins has recorded a solo album since the group disbanded in 1999, and following the death in January, 2000, of their brother, John Morris, in a car accident.

About 15 minutes into the interview, after Rankin has smoked a couple of cigarettes, he is asked whether the new album has songs about his late brother, who played piano and fiddle in the band. "That is pretty direct," he says, butting out his smoke and standing up to grab another pack. "I will let you hear the rest of the album and you tell me." (This does not happen, since the album is not yet complete.)

Rankin can be forgiven for being touchy. After all, the death of his brother at age 40 was a tragic loss not only for the family, but for hope of a comeback of the Rankins, the group in large part responsible for bringing Celtic music to the masses in the mid-'90s. The band has recorded five albums, which have sold more than 2 million copies and won five Juno awards.

The group -- which included five of the 12 Rankin siblings raised in Mabou, N.S. -- was known as the Rankin Family before sister Raylene left after the birth of her first child. It then carried on with Heather, Cookie, Jimmy and John Morris as simply the Rankins, before splitting so its members could further their individual careers. (Heather and Cookie pursued acting; Jimmy, the band's singer and songwriter, started talking about a solo career; and John Morris hoped to collaborate more with musicians outside the family.)

While Raylene, Cookie and Heather have come together since to record a Christmas album, Jimmy Rankin says a real reunion is unlikely.

"I don't think the Rankins is going to happen again," he says. "The only reason why I would say we wouldn't do that is because my brother is no longer living. He was the central musical guy of the band, the nerve centre, especially on the Celtic side. It would be very difficult to replace him. Having said that, I would say nothing is impossible. I just don't foresee it at this time."

Touring with your brothers and sisters for 10 years can also be trying on the family, Rankin admits, adding that as another reason why a reunion might not happen.

Asked if a family feud was a catalyst for the break-up, Rankin refuses to comment: "Do you think I would tell you if there was?

"There were moments when I wanted to pack it in," he adds. "But that mostly has to do with just trying to run a business and being on the road and living in confined spaces and night after night singing the same tunes ... It is not a natural way of life. To sing the same songs every night and be psyched up for it, it is very difficult to do. It wears on you.

"There were moments when everybody had their second thoughts about things, and feelings weren't so good. But at the end of it, it was great. We played across the country and people would know your tunes. What more could you ask for? And they would pay you?"

Rankin, who has no children but is married to Mia, his manager, an investment banker originally from New York who he met as a youth in Cape Breton, says many of the songs on his upcoming album were written while the Rankins were still performing. In the studio, he is happy to play two of the 12 tracks on the album: a ballad, Midnight Angel, which includes a harmony from sister Cookie; and Wasted, a heavier folk rock tune with some harmonica solos.

"The whole album is little stories and images," Rankin says, picking up his guitar and strumming it again. "The way I look at my songs is that I just grab a story or a moment and put it into music. You may feel that way for an hour, then feel better or worse the next day."

Rankin is joined on his new album by fellow East Coast musicians Tim Thorney, who is the producer as well as one of the guitar players, and guitarist Gordie Sampson. Blue Rodeo's Greg Keelor also sings on a couple of tracks. The album is mostly Rankin and his guitar, though, an experience which, as he finished off the CD, he describes as "a strange mixture of excitement and terror."

What Rankin has produced so far is a wide range of love songs, ballads based on real-life stories, and harder folk rock tunes along the lines of Blue Rodeo, but always with that special East Coast touch. "It is me," he says. "If you know any of my music, if you listened to my records over the years with the Rankins, my stuff is kind of varied. I always try to do that on a record."

While Rankin acknowledges he feels pressure proving he can live up to the family name in a solo career, he finds the solo experience has also been "very free ... There have been other guys to bounce ideas off of, but mostly I have to rely on my own judgment. That has been different because in the past I've had four other band members that I trusted. Now it is just down to me."

Jesus Christ, Jesus Christ
Who are you, what have you sacrificed?

Who indeed was the charismatic Nazarean, who rose from a humble birth to seed the most powerful spiritual force in history? A hundred generations have struggled to find meaning from his teachings, his horrific execution upon a cross and his eternal message of brotherly love.

In 1971, British composer Andrew Lloyd Webber and lyricist Tim Rice added to the lexicon with their epic rock musical, Jesus Christ Superstar. The stage-play, and two years later a movie by Canadian director Norman Jewison, revisits the last days of Christ, told from the perspective of Judas Iscariot. Given a contemporary setting, it was a brash updating of the events leading to Christ's death and his resurrection - decried by some as blasphemous, hailed by others as an artistic triumph.

Opening Friday, Halifax's Neptune Theatre is presenting its version of the Lloyd Webber/Rice production, with '80s heartthrob Alfie Zappacosta in the lead role.

Though it's become a cornerstone of musical theatre, Zappacosta never experienced Superstar until he was set to star in the Edmonton stage production nine years ago, directed by Neptune's current artistic director Ron Ulrich.

`I thought it was horrendously bad'

When Ulrich decided to stage the popular musical as Neptune's season-ender, he again called upon the rock singer with the glorious singing range.

"I guess I've become a believable enough Jesus," chuckles Zappacosta, an Italian immigrant who grew up in Toronto and is now based in Alberta. He stars in the show alongside Heather Rankin as Mary Magdalene, Frank MacKay as Pontius Pilate and Peter Baylis as Judas.

"Jesus is not played the way Ted Neeley played him (in the film version), all wimped out," says Zappacosta. "He's definitely got a lot stronger personality. You have to figure someone who had such impact for 2000 years couldn't have been too wimpy."

Rankin was likewise unfamiliar with J.C. Superstar. "I never saw it either. When I found out (Neptune) was doing it, I bought the CD (her version from a New York staging has Alice Cooper in the role of Judas!). I called Neptune to ask if I could audition."

She prepared the heart-rending ballad I Don't Know How To Love Him for her audition, and quickly convinced Ulrich of her abilities. Despite international success with The Rankins and having studying theatre at Acadia University, Rankin has never performed in musical theatre.

"In high school I took physics instead," she deadpans. "I wanted to cover all my bases."

So when she won the coveted role as Mary Magdalene, Rankin worked at home to learn all the material. She doesn't read music, so she mastered all the songs from recordings.

"It's a little bit terrifying," says Rankin, of her first singing and dancing role. "There's more pressure here. It's something I've never done before. I'm all alone - I can't fall back on my brothers and sisters."

Rankin says she's intrigued with the Mary Magdalene character. Christ is said to have thrown out the prostitute's sins and she became a devoted follower, witnessing both his crucifixion and the resurrection.

"You don't want to play her too over the top, explains Rankin. "Initially, she feels a physical attraction (for Jesus), but then she realizes it's not about that - it's more of a spiritual bond."

Though Rankin grew up in a large Cape Breton Catholic family, the full significance of the Easter passion play was lost to her.

"I was never moved by (the Easter season) until we started putting this together. It brings such a human quality to Jesus," she says. "I think it's a very powerful statement about how we can allow fear to force us into doing things that are unfathomable."

Heather Rankin is radiant in the early afternoon sunlight, stealing an hour away from intense rehearsals for Jesus Christ Superstar. She's thrown herself into the musical theatre, an untapped creative outlet for the gifted performer and a welcome new focus.

"It's been a hard year," says Rankin, at a downtown restaurant. "I'm still getting my bearings."

Her brother, John Morris, died last winter in a car crash, just a few months after The Rankins announced they were retiring. Her sister Raylene is currently undergoing chemotherapy for breast cancer.

But the Rankins are a resilient family, and are coping with the challenges, she says. With her own acting career starting to get busy (she played a role last year in the American independent film Scotland P.A., which was shot in Halifax), Rankin is looking for an agent, and says she'll likely be spending more time in Toronto.

After 10 years of top-flight support with The Rankins, Heather is now striking out on her own.

"It's been so liberating," she says. "You realize you are capable of learning new things and taking care of yourself."

- Sandy MacDonald

"The hanging and crucifixion are very graphic. She can't see that," says Halifax singer Peter Baylis, playing Judas in Neptune Theatre's nearly sold-out production of Jesus Christ Superstar, previewing tonight and opening Friday.

Lucy has been watching the movie. "She said, 'Why aren't you playing Jesus?' "

However, Baylis has wanted to play Judas ever since he was 12 years old and his mother brought home the Jesus Christ Superstar album.

"I think Andrew Lloyd Webber and Tim Rice changed the face of the musical right there," says Baylis, a rock tenor who can hit the high notes demanded in Judas's songs.

"They call it the greatest story of all time and that's an understatement. What would it be without Judas? As painful as it is," says Baylis, in an interview at the Economy Shoe Shop.

"That whole journey Judas has to take is intriguing. You've got to dig deep and bring out different emotions: envy, frustration, anguish, the whole gamut."

The other day in rehearsal the enormity of Judas's betrayal hit him. "For a split second I felt sick to my stomach," says Baylis.

"I expect if I don't get booed I'm not doing my job."

The role was not cast until late. Baylis first auditioned in August and didn't get the call until two weeks before rehearsals began that he would be Judas. "Needless to say I fell on my knees and started bawling my eyes out. I was so excited."

He is very grateful for "the support I got from my friends who went to bat for me, to Ron and Neptune." (Neptune's artistic director Ron Ulrich directs the rock musical.)

Baylis can't believe he's playing Judas opposite Alfie Zappacosta, who is Jesus, and in a cast that includes Nova Scotia singer/songwriter Frank MacKay as Pilate.

"I grew up listening to guys like Frank MacKay and Terry Hatty, those are two of the guys I learned the most from. To be friends with them is spectacular!" (Hatty is now in Toronto.)

He also remembers going to the Misty Moon and hearing Alfie Zappacosta sing.

"I remember being enamoured of his vocal ability and now I'm opposite him. Pinch me!"

Baylis, whose bands include Steps Around the House in the 1980s and today's The Harbour Sharks, moved to Toronto in 1988, and by the time he left in 1997 was calling it "Trauma Ontarible."

"It got too big," says Baylis, who does miss things like Toronto's Kensington Market. "I prefer the ocean. I prefer the air."

He and his wife, Ottawa native Jennifer Halpin, also decided they wanted to raise Lucy, born in Toronto, by the sea.

"I was raised by the ocean," says Baylis. "There is such an appeal down here. Look at how many people are moving down here.

"Halifax has picked up where it left off in 1984. The bottom dropped out of it and then guys like Victor Syperek come along and change the town. And Salter Street (Films.)"

Baylis is the bar manager at the popular Prince Street restaurant The Press Gang, owned by Syperek, who has created a cultural meeting place in his bars The Economy Shoe Shop and The Marquee.

Film and TV stars tend to dine at The Press Gang like Sex and the City's Kristen Davis and Dame Judi Dench, whom Baylis invited to Jesus Christ Superstar. (However, she left Halifax before the preview.)

Baylis's wife, whom he met in Toronto at the Bamboo Club, is the manager at The Press Gang.

Though Baylis turned to bartending to make money as a sideline to music and theatre, he says he loves the restaurant business "because it's got this dichotomy.

"It's the same routine every day but because all the people are different it's different everyday.

"I call the bar a stage. You have a captive audience. You're giving them alcohol. They have to talk to you."

Baylis went to Belgium in 2000 to compete in a draft-pouring contest at the World Draught Master 2000 Competition, after taking second place in the North American finals.

When Steps Around the House attracted record companies they wanted to turn the band into ultra pop. Baylis stopped writing songs when he lived in Toronto. "I daily think of writing songs."

Baylis and Bruce Vickery still front The Hopping Penguins whenever the band is invited to play.

"We did the Tall Ships last year; it was a blast. There are 12 or 13 musicians who can create a party; we're just a travelling party now."

Baylis stops to chat with people in the Shoe Shop. "Never too big to talk to his friends," says the waitress.

And then he's off for the first runthrough of Jesus Christ Superstar. "This is a dream come true."

The rock musical, also featuring Heather Rankin as Mary Magdalene, Tim Sell and Bruce Thompson, runs to May 20. There is the possibility of extension. Pay-what-you-can is Sunday, 7:30 p.m.

Cast as Mary Magdalene in Neptune Theatre's production of Jesus Christ Superstar, Rankin is making her musical theatre debut and having a wonderful time.

"Oh my God. It's like a ray of sunshine," the high-spirited singer says.

"It's been a hard year," she says, alluding to her brother John Morris's death in a car accident in January 2000 and her sister Raylene's battle with breast cancer.

"Finally there's, like, some light."

A member of the multiple Juno Award-winning band the Rankins that broke up in September 1999 after 10 years of touring and recording, Heather is, in a way, finally getting to do what she always wanted to do.

"As a kid I never envisioned myself as a singer but as an actor. And what better role to debut your musical career with.

"I always pictured myself being cast in Grease. It's like a gift from God, this role."

Frank MacKay, who plays Pilate, took a similar road to musical theatre. First he was an R and B singer, well-known for fronting the 1960s Truro band The Lincolns and for a solo career that this fall will include the release of Christmas Is, a Ross Billard-produced CD of Christmas standards like Frank's favourite, O Holy Night, and originals.

MacKay remembers when he "wrangled" his first audition at Neptune.

"I remember coming down the hill with all these books, like The Glass Menagerie, under my arm. I ended up singing Danny Boy, and of course I was put in the chorus."

He has been Charlie Chamberlain in Don Messer's Jubilee, Jean Valjean in Neptune's production of Les Miserables, the evil Creon in The Gospel at Colonus and, at the Charlottetown Festival, the tormented older Elvis in Are You Lonesome Tonight, a show Rankin saw and loved.

"Those roles don't come very often," MacKay says. "If you're doing musical theatre in Canada, you get Elvis or Les Miz but then you get the character roles."

Also straddling music and theatre is award-winning Canadian singer-songwriter Alfie Zappacosta, who won a Juno Award for album of the year in 1988 and in 1985 played Che in Evita at Neptune.

"I had the most wonderful time in my life. I'm pleased to be back," says Zappacosta, who lives in Edmonton.

He first played Jesus of Nazareth in 1994 in an Edmonton production of Jesus Christ Superstar at the Mayfield Dinner Theatre.

He's playing Jesus as "a tough guy."

"He couldn't have been some poor little guy shrivelled in a corner," Zappacosta says. "I think he was strong, he was good, he really meant well but politics and religion killed him."

Zappacosta says he isn't specifically "a very religious person."

"I kind of believe in a God, I believe in goodness and people being good. If we maintained the 10 Commandments we'd be fine, and how many people do that?"

The rock musical isn't only for Christians, says Rankin, who was raised a Catholic.

"The story is so powerful it stands on its own. It's a very moving account of Jesus's life.

"Regardless of what religion or God you worship, it moves you. I've heard the story of Jesus's death my whole life and I never envisioned him as a human and a person."

Rankin was worried about playing a prostitute.

"For so long I've been perceived as an apple-cheeked Rankin girl skipping down the country lane, and here I am playing a prostitute," she says.

"My fear is that people have a stereotypical idea of what a prostitute is and I don't want to go there."

But, MacKay says, Rankin brings a purity to the character.

"If you look at what it is Mary is experiencing, she is experiencing a rebirth, a pureness," MacKay says.

Jesus is the first person to treat her with respect, and his love for her confuses her because it is spiritual, not physical.

"It's what the song I Don't Know How To Love Him is about," Rankin says.

MacKay interjects: "Let me say when she sings I Don't Know How to Love Him, it melts your heart."

Playing the bad guy isn't so hard, MacKay says, because the approach Neptune artistic director Ron Ulrich has taken is that Pilate is acting against his will.

"It's interesting playing Pilate," MacKay says. "He's perceived as the really bad guy but he's forced into it. He doesn't want to. He knows he's going to end up taking the rap for eternity."

At this point in his career, MacKay marvels at how much talent is out there - everywhere.

MacKay will spend the summer in the Stan Rogers musical revue in Charlottetown.

"In our show, there are so many talented kids and singers," he says.

Zappacosta's kids, Carly, 18, and Cooper, 14, have grown up to the point where they can take care of themselves. He's eager to throw himself back into singing, songwriting and acting - "anything that allows me to open my mouth and do something."

"I had to make sure they were going to be good folk. I feel I can go out and do what I love to do."

Zappacosta has a new album, Dark Sided Jewel, and he answers all e-mail to his Web site, iamzappacosta.com.

Rankin, meanwhile, has had a chance to reflect on the whirlwind years of the Rankins.

"It's interesting how a year or so can make you stop and look back and just open your eyes to what happened," she says. "I think, if anything, I didn't take the time to live in the moment when it was happening, and something I'm trying to do now is cherish the fun times, the laughing and the learning.

"It got to the point where we were just going and going and not appreciating the good things."

"Everyone wants to be a star," MacKay says. "And what that entails is the travel and the glamour."

"It's not glamourous at all," Rankin says. "It becomes a job."

The Cape Breton siblings became one of the best-selling groups ever to come out of the East Coast, having several multi-platinum albums among the seven they released in 10 years.

The three sisters - Heather, Raylene and Cookie - are tossing around the idea of recording a traditional album, "not thinking of any kind of commercial expectations, just to do it for ourselves, to appeal to that part of our audience that followed us."

It would be a simple acoustic album. "I think it would be nice, especially when everything (else) is so overproduced."

The sisters recorded with Carly Simon on her CD The Bedroom Tapes, out last spring, and Simon invited Heather to sing with her when she was promoting it on The Rosie O'Donnell Show, Good Morning America and The View with Barbara Walters.

Rankin, who has also acted in the films The Hanging Garden and Scotland PA, is keen on musical theatre and would love to be in The Sound of Music.

"This has been such a terrific experience," she says of Jesus Christ Superstar.

PLAYBILL

Where: Fountain Hall, Neptune Theatre

When: The musical previews tonight, opens Friday and runs to May 20. Showtimes are 8 p.m. Tuesday to Friday, 4:30 p.m. and 8:30 p.m. on Saturday, and 2 p.m. and 7:30 p.m. on Sunday. The pay-what-you-can showing is Sunday at 7:30 p.m.

The Cast: Alfie Zappacosta, Heather Rankin, Frank MacKay, Peter Baylis, Andre Haines, Troy Adams, Bruce Thompson, Christian Barry, Tim Sell, Novalee Lorraine Buchan, Rejean Cournoyer, Travis Ferris, Lawrence Haegert, John Allen MacLean, Marla McLean, Dale Miller, Julia Moore, Kelly O'Neill, Katherine Proctor and Sean Robertson.

Artistic director: Ron Ulrich Choreographer: Glen Kotyk

Musical Director: Lisa MacDougall

Costumes / properties designer: Art Penson

Lighting designer: Leigh Ann Vardy

Stage Manager: Kimberly Hirtle

Musicians: James Logan plays guitar, with Bruce Jacobs on bass and Tom Roach on drums.

How much: Tickets are $36.50, and $25 for Tuesdays and previews. There are a few seats for every performance at $15.

Art show: In the lobby to May 20 is the art show Stone, Paint and Clay, of artworks about religious iconography and the landscape of the birthplace of Christianity, by stone carver Heather Lawson, painter Joy Laking and clay artist Krista Wells. All three live on the Bay of Fundy.

The production, which opened Friday at Neptune Theatre after three days of sold-out previews, is more than 99 per cent sold-out for the run slated to last till May 20.

"You can't get a ticket for love or money," said a beaming Ron Ulrich in Neptune's lobby.

"So we've secured the rights to extend the run for two more weeks, 16 more performances."

Starring Alfie Zappacosta, Heather Rankin and Frank MacKay, Jesus Christ Superstar will now play Tuesdays to Fridays at 8 p.m., Saturdays at 4:30 and 8:30 p.m. and Sundays at 2 and 7:30 p.m until June 3. A pay-what-you-can performance is slated for Sunday (April 22) at 7:30 p.m.

The run would have been extended longer except that MacKay, who plays Pilate, is leaving for Charlottetown where he will be in the Stan Rogers musical review.

Ulrich speculates the appeal of the musical is due to a combination of factors - the story of Jesus Christ, a story that everyone knows, Andrew Lloyd Webber's reputation and the score.

"Jesus Christ Superstar is a great score, one of Webber's best with the greatest variety of songs, more singable music. It's extraordinary fun to see."

While there are extra expenses for the cast, crew and special effects, the overall production cost is amortized over a longer period allowing the theatre to put extra money into plans for a new theatre school project among other things, said Ulrich.

Neptune's artistic director, who succeeded Linda Moore in May of last year, also announced a new summer musical.

I Love You, You're Perfect, Now Change, written by Joe diPietro with music by Jimmy Roberts, will run July 10 to Aug. 19. Casting is close to complete, said Ulrich.

A hit in New York, the musical is perfect for summer theatre-goers, he continued.

"It's about relationships and turmoil and we've all been there. It is a very funny piece."

Ulrich will announce Neptune's 2001-2002 season on May 1. The 2000-2001 season, his first, was very successful.

"We had a 28 per cent increase in subscriptions and single ticket sales were up by 24 per cent," he said.

Andrew Lloyd Webber and his backers were so worried about public reaction to his and Tim Rice's rock-opera version of the last seven days in the life of Christ that they tested the waters with a record album of the score before the stage production premiered in New York in the fall of 1971.

That didn't stop the outrage. It may have checked it slightly, but most likely had the opposite effect of stirring up opinion and heightening anticipation. And that may have been the real strategy. Marketeering redraws the boundaries of outrage with every advertising campaign.

Today, stoical as even the church-going public is, conditioned to the shock tactics of Madonna, Eminem and Marilyn Manson, it can listen on Saturday night to a stage Mary Magdalene singing I Don't Know How To Love Him, or to a full company ensemble going for glory on Jesus Christ Superstar, with eyes abrim and hearts aswim with love - and still bring a quiet conscience to church on Sunday morning.

Certainly that would be the case with Heather Rankin's version of Mary Magdalene's love ballad in Ron Ulrich's Neptune production. There is such sweetness in Rankin's lovely voice, she could sing the telephone book and make us bury our noses in our handkerchiefs.

The point is that what remains of Jesus Christ Superstar is just the music. The drama, since the story is so well-known to Christians and non-Christians alike, finds its suspense at first in our curiosity to see how Webber/Rice are going to push the anachronistic metaphor.

But the opera is so well-known (the 1973 movie version showed on PBS last week) that curiosity is further reduced to wondering how Ulrich and his cast will handle it. Luckily that's the strong point in Neptune's energized and entertaining production.

It's so well done, so alertly paced, with so many strong singers, exciting choreography and powerfully projected music under Lisa MacDougall's brilliant direction (loud enough to work but not too loud to take) that the two hours the drama takes disappear like smoke.

The through line that makes the whole hypothesis work, is to emphasize that Christ was a man, not a god. That, this story points out, came later, on Easter morning.

In the late '60s it must have seemed obvious, since rock was the chosen expressive device, to turn Christ into Castaneda and the disciples into flower children.

As Christ, Alfie Zappacosta treads the thinnest of lines between over-doing and underdoing it. In the first act he all but sleep-walks through the role with an expression of profound melancholy on his face, except for his angry scourging of the moneylenders out of the temple. His songs are delivered softly and sweetly as though the effort of restraining his emotion exhausted him.

In the second act he skilfully jacks up the ante, powerfully portraying his sense of betrayal in the Last Supper, his fear of death in the Garden of Gethsemane and his final agony as he is whipped and scorned and crucified.

As Judas, the only complex character in the opera, Peter Baylis delivers the performance of his life. His anger and contempt rockets off the stage in Heaven On Their Minds. He is a man at the end of his tether, gripped by a demonic struggle which reaches a thrilling peak when he realizes in the moments before he jumps to his death, that God has used him.

Tim Sell as Caiaphas arrests the heart with the profound implacability of his deep bass voice. Frank MacKay effectively conveys Pilate's distaste for the affairs of the Nazarenes and his appalled disdain at their fanaticism, and Andre Haines brings the house down with his honky-tonky, Charleston version of King Herod's Song.

But there are only strong performances in this fine production. Dated as the work is, it provides a thousand opportunities for drama. Ulrich and cast take advantage of them all.

My older sisters, Ann Marie, Madonna and Nancy, wore out the vinyl LP on our old turntable.

The revolutionary production was considered blasphemous by some when it was first released 30 years ago because of its biblical context. It's based, of course, on one of the greatest stories ever told - the last week of Jesus of Nazareth's life.

Today, it is embraced and celebrated by audiences worldwide. And appropriately positioned on Neptune Theatre's calendar during this Easter season.

On Friday, the theatre was packed for the opening night performance.

There was much fanfare at a reception before the show. Jesus Christ Superstar is already sold out to May 20, and Neptune's artistic director Ron Ulrich officially announced Friday morning that the musical is held over, two more weeks, until June 3.

If you don't have tickets, the extended run may allow you to see the show. But you better act fast. As of close on Friday, I'm told that a third of the tickets for the added shows are already gone.

I won't give my full critique of the show, our arts reporter Stephen Pedersen does so on page B5, but I must say André Haines portrayal of Herod and the King Herod's Song is a show stealer.

And much applause for Peter Baylis, who says he landed the role of his life being cast as Judas.

He wears one wicked '70s outfit, which looked to be of white polyester slapped with a gold lamé cross, from neck to crotch, and white fringe swinging from both arms. He plays to the audience and delivers one of the most consistent performances in the two-hour show.

The band, hidden in the orchestra pit below stage, also rocked. It included musical director Lisa MacDougall on keyboards, Tom Roach on drums, Bruce Jacob on bass and James Logan on guitar.

On a recent evening at The Press Gang, I got to hang out with Alfie Zappacosta, who plays Jesus and Tim Sell, who plays Caiaphas; they're in town from Edmonton. With all the buzz about Hollywood stars like Kevin Spacey, Harrison Ford, Liam Neeson and Julianne Moore in town, I bet people's reaction to Zappacosta strolling down Barrington Street in a long white garb as Jesus made people look twice. Lou Cable Design captures this scene brilliantly on the show's program and poster.

It was great to see Heather Rankin fulfilling a lifetime dream of acting in a live musical. She makes her Neptune debut as a sweet-voiced Mary Magdalene in this show.

Her beau, James MacInnis, her sister Raylene, her brother Jimmy and his sparkling wife, Mia Nishi Rankin, were in attendance on Friday night, as were the Rankins' longtime manager Mickey Quase and his charming wife Mary.

Spotted at the opening were Neptune board members Fiona Diamond and her husband, Brookes, Robert Zed, Pat Watson and her husband, David, Jim Mills, Cheryl Hodder, David Hastings, Jamie Baillie, Mary Moulton, Tim Margolian, Rick Emberley, Ed Rubin, my predecessor Shirley Ellis and Barb Watt, David and Margaret Fountain, Kaye and Bob Geraghty, Ruth and Richard Goldbloom, Jack and Yvonne Keith, Eva Moore, Mary Lou Martin, Angela Murray and her hubby, Andrew Kirk, Neptune's biggest fan Christine MacKay, Neptune's director of marketing and development Fiona Gibb, Neptune's director of education and the Young Neptune Company, Jennette White, Neptune's acting publicist Jeremy Webb, Metro Radio Group's Kendra Coady, singer / actor Jeremiah Sparks, my neighbours Alan and Marie-Jeanne Wright and their young actor son, William, Neptune's front-of-house manager Jim Smithson and Neptune's general manager Doreen Malone.

It was also a night of good-byes for Neptune's development assistant Chris Wolfe, who's leaving the theatre after six years and heading over to Alderney Landing in Dartmouth to become their capital campaign director.

Hundreds of people lined up late Sunday afternoon to see Neptune's latest production, Jesus Christ Superstar, on the cheap.

And for many, the long wait in the cold and damp was good value.

"My feet were frozen, but it was worth it," said Natasha Hartling who waited in line for about two hours to get her ticket.

At one point, between 800 and 900 people were queued up outside the doors to Neptune Theatre for pay-what-you-can night.

"Normally when (the line) gets to the corner of Blowers and Argyle it's about 400 people," said Jim Smithson, a Neptune manager .

Sunday's line reached from the doors of Neptune down the �rgyle Street block and wrapped around the corner and stretched down to Barrington Street.

The theatre seats 479 and before the show started ushers handed out 479 programs.

"We suggested to the rest that they probably wouldn't get in," Mr. Smithson said.

"But when the doors closed there were about 200 people left."

Although late arriving, one small group was not turned away.

"We butted," said Dalhousie theatre student Bill Wood.

"I feel bad," he claimed, but his case of guilt did not keep him from enjoying himself.

"It was really good."

The crafty theatre-goer said he made a deal with the people he butted in front of.

He promised that if he got the last tickets, he would give his to them.

"They got in and several people after them got in," Mr. Wood said.

One of his friends who did wait in line, came really early and watched the line grow from a bar across the street before she joined the queue.

"In the time it took me to eat my bruschetta, the line was past the du Maurier Theatre," said Kathy Yeats.

Neptune staff recognized many in the crowd as pay-what-you-can regulars, but some of the pay-what-you-canners got turned away.

"Some of them came at their usual time and that was too late," Mr. Smithson said.

Pay-what-you-can night is usually held on the Sunday of the first weekend following a show's opening.

Jesus Christ Superstar runs until June 3.

On Friday, the theatre announced that it was extending the show that had been scheduled to close May 20.