I knew that Jesus Christ Superstar was coming to the Bartlesville Community Center but didn’t think a lot of it until station manager, Mike Vrabac, suggested that I try and get an interview with Ted Neeley, the star who has played the role of Jesus since the beginning.

I humored Mike, thinking that there was no way they would ever agree to my interview so I would try and that would be that.

Wrong. I got a phone call from Ted Neeley’s manager asking when we could set up the interview and covering some other details I needed.

OMG! I’m going to interview TED NEELEY! (extra excited) OMG! I’m going to interview TED NEELEY! (utterly terrified) And so it went for the intervening weeks. The fear of actually being in the presence of Ted Neeley woke me up some nights in a cold sweat and panic.

Let me give you a little background. My mom loved to take us to the theater when we were kids. She took us to see Jesus Christ Superstar at the Schubert Theater in Chicago when I was 12. Coincidentally, or not, that was the first year that the show was on tour and the star of the show was, yep you guessed it, TED NEELEY!

The year after we saw the show on the stage, the movie came out and we went to see it. My sisters and I became huge Ted Heads, although they didn’t call them that back in the day. I will tell you that I learned there is a huge community of active Ted Heads in the present day.

So on the fateful day, I drove to the hotel to have my 30 minute interview with Ted Neeley. I’m not going to lie, he was great. We had such a good time that I think we ended up talking for an hour over my 30 minute time. He said I reminded him of his sister, to which I replied it must have been his goofy, gabby sister.

At the end of our time, the tornado siren went off. I started looking for the escape hatch. He leaned over, put his hand on my arm and said, “What’s wrong? It’s going to be okay.” I said, “It’s going to be okay because I’m talking to Jesus? This is Oklahoma in April and THAT is the tornado siren.”

My back was to the window and when I turned around I saw the deep purple sky. I was totally freaked out. Ted laughed. He said, “We are in hotels all over the country and you never know what is going on in the hallway. I thought that was the vacuum cleaner.” We both got a big laugh out of that and, in the end, we did not get blown away by the tornado and we were able to go see the show that night.

David had never seen Jesus Christ Superstar, not even the movie version. He was skeptical. But by the end, I think we had a converted Ted Head on our hands. We were able to go backstage afterwards because Ted really wanted to meet David. He was so nice and gracious and I was really beyond thrilled that I had gotten an opportunity like this one.

I asked David later if he thought that we had moved to Oklahoma so that I could complete the full circle and he just laughed to think that I thought that Ted Neeley was my life’s purpose. But meeting him, talking to him, hearing how this show has impacted him over the almost 40 years he has performed it was not only a career high point, it was a personal high point in my life.

P.S. I wrote a great article, one of the favorite things I have ever written that I thought would be on the internet forever and I’m sad to say that it’s gone. I’ll make sure to keep copies next time. 🙂