It’s been a month since Jesus Christ Superstar Live happened, and I am long overdue to blog about it! If you haven’t see it, you can stream it here, but may have to log in with your cable provider info.

This was my fifth live TV musical, and my favorite work experience to date. It’s easy to see why: I spent about six weeks working on it, and for five of those we didn’t have cameras so it felt more like a Broadway musical than a TV show — just the actors singing and dancing on a proscenium stage. I was in heaven.

(For other recaps, here are posts I wrote about working on A Christmas Story Live, Grease Live, The Wiz Live, and Peter Pan Live.)

We spent most of our time at a church near Columbus Circle in Manhattan. How funny is that? We rehearsed Jesus Christ Superstar in the basement of a church.

Here is a model of our set, which was shown on the first day of rehearsal:

The first two weeks we had John Legend (our Jesus!) and 12 ensemble members. I can’t overstate how cool it was to watch John Legend sing the Jesus Christ Superstar score right in front of me for that whole time. Then John went on tour in Asia while the rest of the cast and additional ensemble members joined us in the church basement for a few more weeks.

I snapped this photo one day when we had press on site — I found out later this footage was used in NBC’s hour-long special on Andrew Lloyd Webber:

Here are some creengrabs from that Andrew Lloyd Webber special, in which I am visible or our script documents are featured:

Other fun moments from social media: Sara Bareilles was active on Instagram Stories and shared moments from rehearsal. Another day, Norm Lewis re-enacted his Sweeney Todd performance with a razor! He is the best.

I was the script supervisor (my first time in this capacity on a live TV musical), which meant I tracked changes and added stage directions where appropriate as the director and cast molded the show from a libretto into a fully realized production. Once we moved to the shooting venue in Brooklyn, the TV crew used my script as a roadmap for the show — stage managers, audio mixers, etc. track their own notes using this script document.

A few times during rehearsal, Sir Andrew Lloyd Webber himself made an appearance to watch our progress and offer notes.

I played it cool, but on the inside I was like, “SIR ANDREW LLOYD WEBBER IS HERE!!!”

That feeling when a musical theater legend is mere feet away…

One more photo from the rehearsal room. This was taken when John Legend was on tour in Asia so his understudy (and ensemble member) Justin Sargent stepped in to play Jesus. Justin was incredible — what a treat to watch such high caliber performers go all-out in the rehearsal room, day after day.

And then about 10 days before the live show we moved to our venue — an armory in Williamsburg, Brooklyn:

There are two enormous stages inside the armory — the first housed our meal tent and actors’ dressing area (I snapped this photo before the actors moved in — later they blocked off these windows so you couldn’t see below):

And the second housed our enormous stage:

We spent the next four days dry blocking (no cameras) during which I had a front row seat to the action.

This is the largest batch of photos so I will suspend commentary and you can scroll… the pics are arranged in show order, even though we rehearsed out of order:

Micaela Diamond was an ensemble member who also served as Mary’s understudy — she stepped in one day of camera blocking when Sara Bareilles had another commitment. Micaela killed it! She is only 18 (!!) and so poised. She’s one of three actresses playing Cher in the new Cher musical headed to Broadway next season. I’m so excited for her.

Ensemble member Rory Donovan stepped in to cover the role of Herod when Alice Cooper wasn’t available:

Rehearsing the crucifixion with an empty cross:

And the first time we put John up there:

Someone cleverly brought in “Saint John Legend” candles:

Me with the fabulous Mary Gatchell, our rehearsal pianist who was with us from Day 1:

View from the second level (out of four) looking down onto the stage:

View of the audience area:

Our TV truck outside the armory — this is where the show is directed from:

I spent our five camera blocking days in the truck where associate director Carrie Havel called the shots as our TV director Alex Rudzinski watched from set. After each take, they would confer (along with technical director Eric Becker) and make shot changes for the next pass, getting closer and closer to perfection each time we did the scene.

Our script office at the armory:

On Friday night we had our first dress rehearsal for an audience of around 200 people (for the 2nd dress and live show the audience was 1,200). I sat in the last row and took notes. By this point the actors were pretty much word-perfect, except for a few lines that kept tripping them up. I got emotional watching the first dress rehearsal, thinking of all the times I’ve seen the creative team of a Broadway or off-Broadway show watching from the back row during previews, and now here I was in that position, albeit on a TV show. It was so satisfying to be a part of this whole process.

Stage manager Cody Renard Richard (he is the best) brings Sara B. off-stage after her performance of “I Don’t Know How to Love Him”:

Shout out to our lighting designer Al Gurdon — isn’t he masterful?

Alice Cooper takes the stage!

I will never get tired of watching “Superstar,” the big finale before the crucifixion:

Broadway and TV actor Brandon Victor Dixon played Judas, and he SLAYED. I am so glad the world got to see him in this role.

And finally, the crucifixion:

Blocking curtain call after our first dress rehearsal:

During the second dress rehearsal and live show, I was positioned just behind the first rows of seats, watching from a monitor:

Occasionally I could both see the person singing on-stage from just over the monitor, like when Brandon sings in “Judas’ Death”:

A few more miscellaneous photos…

This was our distro table, where we laid out all of our documents for cast and crew to grab:

Script team photo on set before the live show — that’s Krystal, me, Adam, and Sabrina:

A closer look at the shots for this camera operator:

Audio area where the actors (all 25 ensemble members plus 10 principles) get mic’ed before the show:

Me! So, so happy to be working on this show!

Me and Chad, the executive producers’ assistant — he was my buddy throughout this whole process and made the whole thing more fun.

This is our orchestra — Jesus Christ Superstar is the first time that one of these live musicals has had a live orchestra! So exciting. They posed for a group photo outside our office:

This is Justin, the music assistant who was also with us from Day 1 — he rocks.

Last looks at the stage after the live show…

Our strings section sat on these chairs in the sand:

Our team poses with associate director Carrie — we also worked with her on Grease and A Christmas Story. Let’s keep making these!

View from behind the set:

After the show I grabbed our talent manager Carrie Paddock for a photo — she was the first person I knew to volunteer with refugees in Chios, Greece and that is how I ended up on my own trip there. I sent this photo to a few of our mutual friends in Europe.

My credit aired as the four lead cast members took their bow. How fun!

During the live show I popped my head out to record the curtain call on my phone — here is that footage:

There are so many more things to say but it’s taken me long enough to put this together. Eventually I’ll get to my backlog of monthly updates and share more moments with these people — there were some fun social moments outside of work, plus local coffee shops and restaurants I want to tell you all about.

THANK YOU to everyone who made this experience so special! It will stay with me the rest of my life.