UNION CITY – The oldest folk art production of its kind in America is ready to take advantage of the newest in technology. The Passion Play, now in its 85th year of production at the Park Performing Arts Center in Union City, is about to go online with a web cam that will allow millions to view live performances. “You visit our site at www.passionplayusa.org, you click on a web cam and you’ll get a showing of the live performance for each showing,” said Father Kevin Ashe, who has been the director of the Park Performance Arts Center for the past 17 years. “We’re the first in the country to show the oldest folk art production of the Passion Play.” The Passion Play is a musical performance that portrays the life of Jesus Christ. When the performance first debuted in 1931, the popularity of radio and television were just beginning to dawn, but had not yet outshined live theater. The play runs for two months each year on Saturday and Sunday afternoons. This year, a camcorder will be set up at the Park Theater on 32nd Street to record each performance. The camcorder connects to a computer that sends the compressed image to the theater’s host web site, which can be accessed from any computer connected to the Internet. Access to the web cam will be free of charge. Visitors to the theater’s site can click on an image of a television screen that will show images of the live performance. The image does not reproduce true-to-life fluid movements, so actors on the stage might seem to stay still up to 10 seconds at a time, after which the picture changes. Unfortunately, the web cam will not be accompanied with sound. Although the technology exists for sound, the cost for it is too expensive – especially for a not-for-profit performing arts center that was severed from the Catholic Church in 1983 when the Holy Family Church, a not-for-profit organization, took it over, said Ashe, a Catholic priest for the past 37 years. Ashe, who was still waiting on some equipment needed for the Internet link-up last Friday, said that getting the show wired to the web cam is going to cost about $10,000 and that the Sunday, March 19 performance will be the first one to be accessible via the Internet. Ashe said he is not concerned that having the show accessible on the web could damage audience attendance at the theater. “There’s no competition between the live show and this,” he said. “It allows for greater interest. I think it will get people’s curiosity going.” He said a few friends introduced the idea to him and he began to inquire about the possibilities. “They gave me a few sites and I looked at them and thought, ‘I like this thing. It allows for great possibilities.’ This could be unique. This gives us the opportunity to bring the play to a large audience.” Ashe believes that although 10-second intervals might appear to be slow for viewing a production, the story’s wide appeal and global familiarity will offset any such criticism. “If people know the life of Christ, they can piece it together,” said Ashe. The Parks Theater Performing Arts Center has featured shows such as “Annie,” “Babes in Toyland,” the “Wizard of Oz,” and many diverse dance and musical acts. Upcoming performances include the 1st Annual Hudson County Performing Arts Showcase that will feature artists from Hudson County including Union City resident Juan Pablo Torres, a renowned Cuban trombonist. The Passion Play features many Union City and West New York actors and runs every Saturday and Sunday afternoon through April 30. The two-hour performance has a 15-minute intermission. All tickets cost $22, with the best seats sold first. Evolving performance Kevin Ashe, who resides at the Church of St. Ann’s in Jersey City and is 62 years old, said the Park Theater is a great place to view the Passion Play. The auditorium seats 1,400 people on its floor and balcony levels. Ornamented seats and walls complement the elegant banisters and red carpeting. “This is the one theater that has survived,” Ashe said. “It’s not a school auditorium. It’s a real professional space. It was the first of two theaters in Union City. All operas in Hudson County were done here.” On his way down a flight of stairs to the dressing rooms, Ashe talked about how the county passed an official resolution that deemed the Park Theater the official Performing Arts Center in New Jersey. Down the street from the theater is “Mi Bandera,” a supermarket now occupying a building that once housed a famous playhouse when it was built in 1917. Union City was once a theater district, said Ashe, but just about all theater buildings in the area have been transformed into supermarkets. There is an old smell in a dressing room that is brightly-lit with a few scattered chairs and a single mirror in one corner adjacent to the costume room. Ashe opens one door next to a white refrigerator that looks more like a cupboard. It’s the oldest operating refrigerator in Hudson County, said Meriam Lobel, director of folk art at the theater. The opened door reveals brooms, mops and old buckets. “Look here,” Ashe said, pointing to markings on the walls inside. “Those are names of previous actors. Look at that one.” In the center of several other marks was one that read, “Passion Play army 1942” with the initials C.F. “In the 85 seasons this play has been on stage here, it has introduced more people to theater than any place else in New Jersey,” said Ashe. Later, sitting in his office, Ashe said that since his arrival, the play itself has been evolving in an effort to keep up with the times, hence the web cam on the Internet. A videocassette documentary about backstage happenings and audience reactions to the Passion Play performance was recorded last year by Union Hill High School students, and there will be portions of it available on the web. Also, a musical compact disc is currently in the works that would feature all songs from The Passion Play. Ashe said the CD would be available for sale over the Internet as well as at performances and depending on sales, the CD could make an appearance at record stores in the area. “In 1983, when I first came here, I saw the play and it was really very boring,” Ashe said. “The dialogue was stilted because they were still using scripts from 1915, and language changed. We decided to re-work it and also address a problem with passion plays around the world, that they tend to be anti-Semitic. So we resolved those issues [and] that became a win-win situation for Christians and Jews. We did this by restaging it and changing the language itself.” He also said that the play was not always a musical, but two singing parts proved successful with audiences. After that, Ashe said, he decided to expand the singing parts little by little and finally decided to give singing parts to almost all 35 cast members, including the actor who portrays Jesus. He added, “We also do something very interesting. From day to day people will switch roles. It forces the actors to be supportive of each other, to help each other with the lines.”