Faith Jones graduated college in 2020 into a world that stood still.
She wanted to forge a career on the strength of her powerful voice and was well aware that it is hard to become a professional singer even without a global pandemic forcing show closures and choking purse strings in the entertainment industry. Still, Jones’ ambition exceeded doubt.
Now, the Newport News native has a leading role in one of Broadway’s most iconic rock operas, “Jesus Christ Superstar.” She stars as Mary Magdelene in the national 50th anniversary tour that hits Chrysler Hall on Tuesday.
Jones performs four of the production’s best-known songs with others in the cast, but she is on full display while soloing “I Don’t Know How to Love Him,” which became a 1973 pop hit after the show’s original run.
The show follows the last weeks of Jesus Christ’s life through the eyes of one of his disciples, Judas. It began as a concept album by Andrew Lloyd Webber and Tim Rice, and “Jesus Christ Superstar” debuted on Broadway in 1971. The original album was named the Billboard Pop Album of the Year.
Jones, 25, likes to say music is in her blood.
Her parents met when they were musicians in the same local band. The couple moved to Durham when Jones was 2, and her father started working as a pianist and music director at Mount Vernon Baptist Church and as a music teacher at Culbreth Middle School in Chapel Hill. He still performs and her mother still joins him on stage for some jazz performances.
Jones began auditioning for musicals in high school.
She majored in vocal performance at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, where she sang in campus productions including two shows with the professional theater company in residence at UNC, the PlayMakers Repertory Company.
“Through those PlayMakers shows, I just got to meet some incredible people,” she said, including Lauren Kennedy Brady, the producing artistic director at Theatre Raleigh, who would change her life.
After graduating in the summer of 2020, Jones realized that she’d “really kind of fallen in and out of love” with musical theater. She started to focus on writing her own music while finding those gigs at bars that were starting to reopen.
One day she got an email from Brady, who asked her to audition for Theatre Raleigh’s 2022 season. Despite mixed feelings about her future in musical theater, Jones said to herself, “Why not?”
She didn’t know the North Carolina theater used the same casting office as certain New York-based shows, including “Jesus Christ Superstar.” One of the show’s casting directors saw her audition, was impressed and asked her to submit a tape to the New York offices.
Jones submitted the tape in February 2022. She was called to audition in March and performed a second callback in May. She was cast as Mary in June. She began three weeks of rehearsal in September and the tour opened in Columbus, Georgia, in October.
Some weeks are tough. At times, the cast will perform eight shows a week in one city, such as the upcoming run in Norfolk.
They’ve also had “split weeks” with shows spread across two or three cities. One week, Jones sang in five cities in one week.
Traveling in the tight confines of a bus can be tough, but Jones said it has also helped to strengthen her bond with cast members and foster a “family dynamic” that she thinks can be seen on stage and felt by audiences.
Her character is trying to help her friends, Jesus and Judas, keep the peace between them and remain calm in troubling times, and, Jones said, it’s easy to conjure the emotions required by the role. All she has to do is to look at the actors who play Jesus and Judas — her friends Jack Hopewell and Elvie Ellis — and imagine they were feuding in real life.
“I’m thinking about, you know, how their friendship is being disrupted and how or what I can what I can or want to do as a friend to help.”
And the music plays. The emotions flow. Jones’ powerful voice goes to work.
Colin Warren-Hicks, 919-818-8139, colin.warrenhicks@virginiamedia.com
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If you go
When: 7:30 p.m. Tuesday through Thursday; 8 p.m. June 2; 2 and 8 p.m. June 3; 1 and 6:30 p.m. June 4
Where: Chrysler Hall, 215 St. Paul’s Blvd., Norfolk
Tickets: Start at $40
Details: sevenvenues.com
