The Glamorous Life Of A Christian Boy Band

Matthew loves Mel Gibson movies. Mark loves antiquing and reality TV. Luke has a soft spot for donuts. Juan’s into paintball and flan while Abraham wants to find a nice Jewish girl who looks good in red.

Thus is the brief list of notable info on the boy band tearing a swath of non-secular excitement across the country, whipping chaste young women into a frenzy the likes of unseen since Bobby Socks were invented. Yes, The Altar Boyz are here.

“The Altar Boyz”—the stage sensation that lit up the off-Broadway world for the last two years—is making its Colorado debut at Fort Collins’ Carousel Dinner Theater. The premise is a winner, no matter how you slice it: A new Christian boy band explodes onto the national scene and is forced to learn how to deal with incomparable fame while keeping its moral compass firmly on the right path. And saving a soul or three while they’re at it.

Christopher Durang, eat your heart out.

“(Carousel’s owner) Kurt Terrio and I were in New York two summers ago and saw the show on a whim,” relates Scott Wright, Carousel artistic director. “We laughed and laughed and laughed. When it became available to produce, we jumped at the chance and were first in line to snatch up the rights.”

Granted, it wasn’t much of a gamble. Since the show first premiered in New York in 2004, it’s been widely revered as a brilliant send-up of both Christian rock and the boy band phenomena. “Nunsense” meets “Forever Plaid” meets N’Sync.

“The response has been amazing,” Wright confides. “Every evening when the boys walk out at the beginning of the show, it’s like a true rock concert.”

Except, perhaps, without all the devil horns from the audience.

“The main thing behind it is the five boys who are committed to being Catholics (well, four Catholics and one Jew),” Wright says. “They have to believe it and truly be devout to pull this off.”

Buying it all, hook, line and sinker could be hard enough for the diverse audience in the northern suburbs; harder even, when you hear lyrics like, “Jesus called me on my cell phone/No roaming charges were incurred/He told me that I should go out in the world/and spread his glory and his word.” Yet the open-mindedness of Carousel’s audience has helped the show’s popularity; “Altar Boyz” sold out the first weeks of the run.

“We’ve already had repeat customers,” Wright says. “Tickets for upcoming shows are going fast. People in Fort Collins are definitely open to seeing new things.”

This is Wright’s third season at Carousel, although he’s quite familiar with the area. He relocated from Tampa in 2002, where he worked the dinner theater circuit and some regional theater, and is a graduate of UNC Greeley. He worked as the choreographer at Carousel before taking over his current role in 2005.

ALTAR BOYZ
Thru Nov. 24, Carousel Dinner Theater, Fort Collins, 970.225.2555