Rosebud veteran takes on Jesus role in Passion Play

Times Contributor 

 

Aaron Krogman, who’s played in the hit Canadian play She Has a Name, and has been in a number of hits on the Rosebud stage, will play Jesus in the Canadian Badlands Passion Play this year.

Krogman understudied the Jesus role for two years, which means he’d learned the role and was prepared to play it if the Jesus actor, Stephen Waldschmidt, had been unable to perform. Studying the role but not performing it was like “making bread but not serving it,” he says. This year, he looks forward to serving that bread.

In mid-June, Krogman was still in rehearsals, but he’d already found that rehearsing to perform was quite different than preparing to understudy. He says, however, he won’t know what it’s like to actually “serve bread” until the play opens July 10. 

“The audience makes the biggest difference,” he says. “They’re such an important part of any production and you don’t really know what the story is until they’re added into the mix.”

When he does meet his audience, he wants to portray a likeable Jesus, one whom Krogman and his friends would like. He also wants to bring something fresh to the story. 

“Keeping it fresh is one of the unique parts of getting to act it out,” Krogman says, “because (that’s) one of the important pieces of bringing it to an audience that’s probably heard the (story) before.”

To do that, he has to keep it fresh for himself. 

“It’s more interesting when I can let go of what I know, and let myself discover it in the moment of the scene as it’s happening all around us,” he says. “It’s alive in the moment for me and for someone who needs to hear it.”

Also, Krogman says, the overall goal of any storytelling is for the audience to feel empathy. 

“Where you step outside your own shoes and put yourself in someone else’s shoes and then imagine what it would be like to be them,” he says. “When (we) engage story in that kind of way, we become bigger human beings, and bigger than just ourselves.”

As he’s spent three months preparing, Krogman is experiencing a lot of empathy with Jesus himself. 

“How frustrated He may have been with the Pharisees that were giving Him such a hard time back then,” he says. “And also how scary death might be. And how much love He can have for specific people.”

He imagines Jesus’ victories too. 

“There’s a (disabled) girl who’s walking with a crutch, and Jesus gets to heal her,” he says. “To be able to give that gift to somebody … more than anything, wow, that must have been crazy for Jesus.”

Whether or not Jesus’ story is part of our own faith backgrounds, “there’s going to be something in (the Passion Play) for everybody,” Krogman says. “It’s so cool it’s in an amphitheatre, and it’s 200 actors, and whatever your worldview … it’s awesome. The story is important too. It’s a 2,000 year old story. It’s part of our culture, regardless of what your beliefs are.”

The Passion Play runs July 10 to 21. Find information and tickets at www.canadianpassionplay.com.