Portland Players’ interpretation of “Jesus Christ Superstar,” the early 1970s rock opera written by Broadway legends Andrew Lloyd Webber and Tim Rice, opens on Friday and runs through Sept. 27 in South Portland.

Colleen Clark plays the title role in the show about the final week in the life of Jesus of Nazareth, as told by Judas Iscariot.

Other key roles are Becky Rinaldi as Judas, Kelly Mosher as Mary Magdalene, Ben Carling as Caiaphas, Caleb Eugley as Pontius Pilate and Jessica Libby as King Herod.

A year before its 1971 Broadway debut, a double-album score was released with a thick brown cover, white lettering and a gold logo that looks like a pair of angels. Ian Gillan from the rock band Deep Purple was Jesus.

My parents owned this album and songs like “What’s the Buzz/Strange Thing, Mystifying,” the title track, and especially “I Don’t Know How to Love Him,” sung by Yvonne Elliman as Mary Magdalene, are part of my childhood musical DNA.

When I went off to college, I broke the eighth commandment and snagged the album. I still have it. I’ve seen it performed three times over the decades, but I’ve never been more excited to see it than now.

Clark, who lives in Portland with her husband and young child, and I had a spirited chat about the Portland Players’ production of “Jesus Christ Superstar,” and bonded over the fact that while neither of us are religious, the show is a favorite, right up there with “Rent.”

If you believe in Jesus being God or the Son of God, then his sexuality and his gender doesn’t matter. It’s pointless. And if you start to say that it matters, then you’re quickly kind of tripping into sexism. I believe that the best things about Jesus are kindness, acceptance and inclusion.

I would label myself as somebody who is kind of recovering from religion. I grew up in an Episcopalian church, which is like a liberal chapter of Catholicism. I didn’t identify as queer when I was young, but I do now. I just didn’t have the language for it. People thought that I was a bad kid, even though I was this straight A student in a church choir. The judgment started to become very clear to me and I just slowly pulled away.

I was always in this very rigorous church choir, church was always music for me. The way that I practice any sort of spirituality was always singing, so when I separated from the church, that didn’t change. There’s still a part of me that feels a lot of pain of not being part of that community. But I found new community in theater.

With “Jesus Christ Superstar,” the really important thing for me to have folks understand is that Tim Rice and Andrew Lloyd Webber are both self-diagnosed, recovering Catholics. And both would describe themselves as agnostic. Not anti-faith and not anti-spiritual, but not Christian. I think the play is in line with that. So for me, it’s very much about Jesus’ humanity and the fact that he’s flawed, and his relationship with Judas is flawed and somewhat co-dependent. They’re both kind of tied into this horrible but beautiful fate together.

I love doing “Gethsemane (I Only Want To Say),” but not the boisterous part. The big, intense part of it is really vocally challenging, and has been a personal challenge to continue working on. I actually really love the beginning of it with just Jesus sitting alone and saying “will no one stay awake with me?” It’s so raw. I’ve talked a lot with Michael (Donovan), the director, about how being Jesus means that you have to be really open, but also very closed. You have to be a part of everything but also very alone. And you have to be very brave, but also very scared.

Colleen Clark plays Jesus Christ in the rock opera “Jesus Christ Superstar” in the Portland Players’ production, which runs Friday-Sept. 27. (Photo by Kat Moraros)

I hope that regardless of what people’s faith is going in, that it is about somebody really believing in something, and staying true to what they believe, while also really wanting to protect people that are being marginalized and people that are being hurt. And that you can stand up against power. Right now, that feels really important. I hope if anybody has been hurt by their religion or how they grew up, that it might be healing for some people to see this very inclusive cast and see themselves on stage being loved and welcomed and safe, whether they are still a religious person or not.

I would say that this isn’t a show about religion. This is a show about humanity, and I think we all need to be more in touch with our humanity right now. And it’s a very human show, (a) raw, cathartic, dark, moving show. If you go in expecting to see some humanity, then you can see that in spades and we need that right now.

7:30 p.m. Friday and Saturday, 2:30 p.m. Sunday. Through Sept. 27. Portland Players, 420 Cottage Road, South Portland, $28, $23 seniors and 17 and younger. portlandplayers.org.