‘Duck Dynasty’-Backed Gen Z Jesus Musical ‘His Story’ To Debut in Texas

As director, Calhoun brought both a vision for the show’s fluid, artistic staging and his connection to the Robertsons, whom he’d collaborated with for a “Duck Dynasty” musical in 2015. Korie Robertson, who is a producer for the show alongside her husband Willie, told RNS she was drawn to the show for its professional quality and commitment to Scripture.

“If you know God’s word and know the Bible, you hear the words woven throughout the songs. You know the stories and you see them in a whole new light,” she told RNS. The Robertsons’ family-oriented, Christ-centered vision helped ground the production, according to Lazarus, and they were key to raising funds and recruiting investors.

“His Story” was never aimed for the Broadway stage. Lazarus told RNS that while the show can be appreciated by nonreligious viewers, he didn’t want to take the chance of “plopping it on Broadway” because “New York critics can be a little unsympathetic to spiritual matters.”

According to Henry Bial, chair of the theatre and dance department at the University of Kansas and author of the 2015 book “Playing God: The Bible on the Broadway Stage,” although some Bible-inspired musicals make it big (think “Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat,” “Jesus Christ Superstar” and “Godspell”), they’re “aberrations.”

“Typically, Broadway and ‘the musical’ is a secular space,” he said.

In search of a Christian audience, Lazarus chose to settle the show near Dallas at a new food and entertainment venue called the Grandscape. He hopes it will become a local fixture that attracts annual pilgrimages, like Sight and Sound theater in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, and Branson, Missouri.

Beneath a towering Ferris wheel, a series of tents host a lobby, theater, restrooms and backstage area. “It has sort of organic feelings of revival meetings, without having to say anything,” observed Calhoun.

The theater tent features a planetarium-like 360-degree projection, stage elevator and turn tables. But though high-tech, the set and costumes are simple, suggesting the show’s events could take place anywhere.

The musical has few lines, unless you count the ones spoken or rapped during the musical numbers. Brown’s lyrics are packed with contemporary phrases — “Who is this Messiah that everybody’s talkin’ ‘bout?” Jesus’ mother croons in the second number — and, according to Bial, the show’s key conceptual influence is hard to miss. “It has serious ‘Hamilton’ vibes,” he said.

“The hip-hop genre and the use of spoken word allows for a lot more story content than you get in a typical musical,” added Bial, whose observations are based on the original concept album. He noted that while “Jesus Christ Superstar’s” two-hour, 15-minute rock opera only captures the week leading up to Jesus’ crucifixion, “His Story” starts at creation and includes Jesus’ birth, ministry and death, all in roughly the same amount of time. This allows for more character backstory, as seen in a musical number sung entirely by the leper healed by Jesus.

The show also hopes to avoid the heresies and hang-ups that plagued “Superstar,” which was protested by Christian and Jewish groups for depicting Jewish leaders as gargoyles, presenting Mary Magdalene as Jesus’ love interest and forgoing a resurrection.