What do you do for an encore when you’ve sold more than 27 million records as the leader of the most successful Chicago-based rock group ever and as a bonus scored a Top 10 hit as a solo artist?
If you’re Styx’s Dennis DeYoung, you hit the boards as Pontius Pilate in a new national touring production of the Andrew Lloyd Webber/Time Rice rock opera “Jesus Christ Superstar.”
Also starring original motion picture cast members Ted Neeley as Jesus and Carl Anderson as Judas, as well as Irene Cara as Mary Magdalene, the show stops at the Chicago Theatre Tuesday through Sunday.
DeYoung was approached about joining the production in September, when he flew to the West Coast to attend the wedding of his sister-in-law to “Superstar” line producer Forbes Candlish.
“He told me they were doing the show and would really like to have me as Pontius Pilate,” said DeYoung. “I said, `C’mon, what are you talking about?’ Without naming any names, too many rock stars have tried things like acting, and by and large they always end up looking stupid to me. There’s a lot of room for disappointment, and frankly that was a list that I really didn’t want to join.”
Candlish’s persistent calls to DeYoung at his far southwest suburban home finally paid off when DeYoung flew to New York to meet the show’s director.
“I remember buying the (“Jesus Christ Superstar”) album in 1972, playing it once and never thinking about it again,” said DeYoung, 45. “But after I went to New York and got the music and listened to it again I thought, `Hey, Pontius Pilate-pretty cool!’ He’s a loud-mouthed Italian who always wants to be in control, so it was perfect typecasting for me. I figured, if I couldn’t play this role, what could I play?”
Actually, “Superstar” isn’t DeYoung’s first theatrical project. In 1983 Styx mounted an ambitious multimedia tour for their “Kilroy Was Here” concept album. An ahead-of-its-time diatribe against censorship set in the near future when rock ‘n’ roll has been outlawed, the show featured the five members of Styx doing nearly as much acting as singing.
The “Kilroy” show played for four nights at the Auditorium Theatre and was back six months later for a night at the Rosemont Horizon.
“Doing that show cured me big time from having any theatrical aspirations,” said DeYoung. “Somewhere around the 70th show, when I was putting on those damn robot boots (part of the show’s sci-fi-themed costumes) for the umpteenth time, I said to myself, `Now whose idea was this?’ And, of course, it was my idea.”
DeYoung, who says he never experienced any nervousness in 20 years of performing with Styx, admits to experiencing some trepidation when he first joined the “Superstar” cast for rehearsals in New York.
“At first I kept asking myself what I was doing there,” he said. “The first day I’m in New York I’m in the elevator of Manhattan’s biggest theatrical rehearsal studio and I turn around and there’s Neil Simon on his way up to watch rehearsals of `The Goodbye Girl.’ And I’m thinking about how just two weeks ago I was trying to get tickets in Chicago to see `Lost in Yonkers’ for my anniversary. I wanted to say, `Hey, Neil, what are you doin’ in the elevator when I can’t even get tickets for your show?’ What am I supposed to think-I’m a guy from Roseland riding in an elevator with Neil Simon going up to play Pontius Pilate.”
DeYoung says he experienced no resentment from his fellow “Superstar” cast members because of his rock ‘n’ roll background.
“What I experienced was internal pressure, not external, because Teddy Neeley, Irene Cara and Carl Anderson couldn’t have been nicer to me,” he said. “I spent the first two weeks of rehearsals in New York paralyzed with fear. From there it progressed to just a normal amount of anxiety and terror. But it smoothed out by the time we got to Baltimore for the final rehearsals.”
Ironically, the day before the show opened in Baltimore-the tour’s first stop-DeYoung suffered a serious injury during the final dress rehearsal that knocked him out of action for the tour’s first six weeks. While standing on a platform onstage he was hit on the head by an unrolling “roll-drop” and fell eight feet, seriously injuring his knee and suffering a lesser injury to his back.
“I had done my first two scenes flawlessly, and I was standing up there admiring myself and saying, `I can do this!’ when I got hit in the head,” said DeYoung.
Confined to a wheelchair, he returned to Chicago for weeks of painful rehab on the knee and rejoined the production just two weeks before its Chicago run.
While he’s committed to the production, which is on the road through the end of the year, DeYoung hasn’t forgotten about Styx, whose 1990 reunion album after a six-year hiatus, “Edge of the Century,” went gold and spawned the Top 5 hit “Show Me the Way.” While the group, which also includes original members James Young and brothers Chuck and John Panozzo, is currently searching for a new record label, their old label, A&M Records, will be releasing a “greatest hits” package later in the year that will include two new songs.
DeYoung says he remains unconcerned about any potential negative reactions by longtime Styx fans to his participation in “Jesus Christ Superstar.”
“That’s never really entered my mind,” he said. “This is a quality production, and I think that anyone coming to see it will enjoy it. That was my sole criterion for doing it and has been my sole criterion for doing anything with Styx.”
A tireless Chicago booster and native South Sider (one of his three solo albums includes a song called “Southbound Ryan”), DeYoung remains proud that unlike Chicago and Earth, Wind & Fire-two platinum-selling acts with Chicago origins who immediately deserted their hometown for the West Coast-the members of Styx not only stayed in the city but recorded all of their albums here.
“Where you live is not about mountains and oceans, it’s about friends and family,” said DeYoung, the father of a 21-year-old daughter and a 13-year-old son. “And my friends and family are here. Besides, what’s so wonderful about looking at palm trees anyway?”
