US gets its Jerry Springer moment

The controversial musical once seemed destined for Broadway, with plans for a San Francisco run ahead of a New York transfer last year. But those plans were dropped after the UK tour was scaled down in the face of intimidating pressure from fundamentalist Christians.

So now the opera’s US debut will be on a much smaller scale, staged by the Bailiwick Repertory Theatre in Chicago from May.

The production will be a non-Equity affair, which means some of its cast will not be professionals and the wages are below the union rate.

And although the theatre seats only 150, director David Zak plans a cast of 25 and an orchestra of six, about the same size as the show that toured UK theatres.

Zak said: ‘With Jerry here in town, Chicago is the natural place to introduce the musical to American audiences. It begins in very familiar territory for those of us very aware of Jerry's presence in the NBC Tower downtown.’

The British tour faltered after vocal hardliners at the Christian Voice pressure group orchestrated a campaign against theatres planning to show it.

The opera, by stand-up Stewart Lee and composer Richard Thomas, became a cause celebre for the evangelists angered by the bad language and portrayal of Jesus as a ‘perv in a nappy’. The group helped muster 47,000 calls of protest for the BBC for showing it.

The Chicago show will run from May 8 until July 8, with the official first night on May 14.

Meanwhile, Christian Voice is currently campaigning against the construction of a huge mosque in East London because any mosque is ‘an abomination in the sight of Almighty God’ and ‘a place where demonic principalities and powers are glorified’.

Published: 8 Nov 2006