Brandon Victor Dixon was known primarily as a Broadway actor with a couple of Tony nominations (“Shuffle Along,” “The Color Purple”) to his credit when he was cast as Judas in NBC’s production of “Jesus Christ Superstar” (which aired last April).
Playing alongside John Legend and Sara Bareilles, Dixon, 37, was electrifying; his command of the stage at the cavernous Marcy Avenue armory in Williamsburg garnered him an Emmy nomination for Best Supporting Actor in a Limited Series — the only live performance in the category.
“Everybody was really excited, really proud of ‘Superstar,’ ” Dixon tells The Post.
Small wonder, then, that he was cast in TV’s next live musical: “Rent,” Fox’s adaptation of the Jonathan Larson play which opened on Broadway in 1996 and won a Pulitzer Prize, as well as the Best Musical Tony, for memorably telling the story of seven East Village artists trying to follow their dreams in the age of AIDS.
It airs Sunday night at 8 from the Fox studio lot in Century City, Calif., with Dixon as Tom Collins, a gay professor from NYU whom he terms “the oldest member of his group of friends,” in the ensemble production featuring Vanessa Hudgens, Tinashe, Mario and Kiersey Clemons. “We get to follow a challenging year in the lives of these New Yorkers,” he says. “Through these relationships we see how love transforms the disease of the body, the disease of hate, xenophobia.”
When Dixon first saw “Rent” in 2000, he admits he didn’t get it. He auditioned for a role in the show two weeks later, and while listening to the original cast CD to prepare, says he “began to hear what they were saying. I became moved by the message.” All these years later he says, “The closing number of the show is my favorite closing number ever. It’s so moving.”
He’s been rehearsing five days a week since Thanksgiving for the live show on a two-tiered set that includes mosh pits. “We get to use the space to illuminate the characters and the story,” says Dixon, who has a couple of solo numbers. “ ‘Santa Fe’ is the song I sing in the first act, with Tom’s new love, Angel (Valentina), and his friend Mark (Jordan Fisher).” Going into the project, the only cast member Dixon knew was Fisher. “We did ‘Hamilton’ in New York for a little while,” he says. “He’s going to be marvelous.
“ ‘Rent’ is a very different character and show than ‘ Jesus Christ Superstar,’ ” he says. “It’s about the honesty and vulnerability of sharing myself through the journey. By the end of the show, we strip everything away. All of us.
“I think it’s going to be extraordinary.”
“Rent” airs 8 p.m. Sunday on Fox.