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Team StarKid Members Get Biblical On Us With "The Last Days Of Judas Iscariot"

Dylan Saunders as the Judge and Joey Richter as Satan in The Last Days of Judas Iscariot.

They might have become famous with A Very Potter Musical, but members of Team StarKid are trying a totally different route with a new production: The biblically inspired drama The Last Days of Judas Iscariotwhich debuted in Chicago this weekend.

Written by playwright Stephen Adly Guirgis, Judas sees the Bible's biggest traitor on trial for his life in the afterlife, with witnesses ranging from Mother Teresa to Sigmund Freud. It's quite a change for the group, whose fans come mainly from the digital, meme-obsessed generation. So, to help get the word out the creative team enlisted famous pals Sean Astin and Darren Criss (a founding StarKid member) to sell tickets to their funded a Kickstarter campaign for Judas Redux, a multimedia plan to document the production from start to finish.

"A lot of people had thought when the Kickstarter finished that we were three months out from anyone arriving in Chicago, we were so far out, so with a play you think, "What is there to do, that far out?" laughed producer-actor Joey Richter. "But, man, did we have our work cut out for us. People say it's the calm before the storm, but no it's pretty much the storm before the hurricane."

Related: “Judas Redux” Boys Team Up With Sean Astin & Darren Criss To Sell Tickets To New Show

"It's always a challenge to think about if you're still tapping into things you used to do, at least from the perspective of someone who was in the show the first go-around," said Richter. "Sometimes things work, there were things the first time that worked. You don't want to get rid of everything. It's a matter of finding new things."

Producer-actor Joey Richter compared the Judas experience with working on StarKid's first major original production, the sci-fi epic Starship. "Starship was a new level of disciple I taught myself,"says Richter. "With Judas, it's a new phase—a whole new veil has been uncovered. It's way bigger and way more of a production than we ever thought it would be."

Mounting the production has not been without its challenges: "[The set] was just huge, and there was a lot of work involved," says director Julia Albain. "There's some special effects going on. It turned into a beast of the thing to try and conquer. It's worth it, but we've just been putting in a lot of long hours to make the thing work."

Fans expecting song and dance numbers should know that, while Judas is a straight play, there are major music elements: "Clark (Baxtresser) and Pierce (Siebers) have been composing original scoring for the show, and we even have one of our actors playing the violin live," explains Albain.

As an actor, Richter says he feels a deep connection with the play: "I'm at a point in my life where the choices you make in your life... how you perceive yourself, and the repercussions of those choices, mean a lot more to me now."

For her part, Albain hopes StarKid's core following is open to the show's ideas and runs with them: "I would like people to walk away thoughtful, questioning and having conversations," she said. "I'd like people to see actors they know and love in very different ways.  And, frankly, I'm okay if some people are a little turned off and offended by it. It may not be for everyone, but I think there's something there for people to latch on to."

"A lot of the audience that might be attending, this is a very different thing to see from us," said Richter. "Not that it's our place to educate people at all, but we want to share something with our audience that is different and more mature. It's a different kind of theater, and one we all feel passionate about."

Judas Redux runs through September 8 at Stage 773 in Chicago.

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