The choir is about to get poppy as well as preachy when 11th Hour Theatre Company presents the musical hit “Altar Boy. ”
The comedy follows a fictitious Christian boy band on the last night of its national tour.
Nicolas Park, who plays Mark, said that while the titular group is Christian, the show harkens back to the boy-band gold rush of the mid to late 1990s.
“It was suggested that we look up modern-day groups, which I’ve personally been doing and looking into what the Christian music scene is,” he said. “But we’re definitely pulling a lot more from the 1990s inspiration of pop music: ‘N Sync and the Backstreet Boys. I was so excited to join this team because I listen to this music still anyway. It was really nice to be doing a show where they wanted us to listen to those groups and watch those music videos. They were a little more wholesome than the modern-day boy bands are, like One Direction. They don’t have the cool dance moves. We’re going back to the wholesome team of five.”
Park said that, while all audiences will find the show immensely funny, there are some bits of humor that Catholics can particularly latch on to.
“Having grown up Catholic myself, there is a lot of humor in the lyrics,” he said. “It’s a very smart show and it’s written in a way that makes light of the religious traditions while still taking themselves very seriously. They point out what Catholics do and having grown up for almost 28 years as a Catholic, I can look at that and appreciate that hidden humor. From that ’90s boy band thing, we have the sensitive one, the leader, the bad boy, the outsider — the pieces you need for the group. And you can find humor in that. You take those characters and make them 10 times bigger and push those differences. As an audience you think to yourself, How did this group come together? There’s a lot of humor in the over-the-top comedy that you find.”
Park plays the “sensitive” member of the Altar Boyz. You know, the Jonathan Knight or Lance Bass of the group.
Yeah, that guy.
But Park said that his character, Mark’s “sensitivity” is not an issue with the group’s fans or his fellow band members.
“I am an out and proud gay man myself,” Park said. “I grew up in that environment of being in the closet and wondering how my religion would view me. The way we’re going to play it is that Mark is not out and proud. He is who he is. Never in the show does it say he’s gay. He’s the sensitive one and we let the audience come to that conclusion on their own. So in the group, there’s no question if he’s gay or not. He’s Mark and they love Mark for exactly who he is. The show is written in a way that the audience can come to that conclusion of their own.”
11th Hour Theater Company presents “Altar Boyz” May 15-June 1 at The Arts Bank, 601 S. Broad St. For more information or tickets, call 267-987-9865 or visit 11thhourtheatrecompany.org.