Criminal Minds Actor Bill Oberst Jr To Play Jesus On Atlanta Stage

Bill Oberst Jr, known to TV viewers as a serial killer on the CBS series Criminal Minds and to movie viewers as a zombie-fighting Abraham Lincoln, is coming to the Atlanta area to play Jesus onstage.

Oberst's solo one-acts, Jesus Of Nazareth and The Book Of Genesis, play the ART Station Theatre at 5384 Manor Drive, Stone Mountain GA from March 31 to April 3, 2016. Ticket information is available at www.artstation.org or by calling the box office at (770) 469-1105.

Jesus Of Nazareth, a recreation of the teaching presence of Jesus, is taken entirely from The Bible's Synoptic Gospels, while The Book Of Genesis is composed of selections from the first book of both Bible and Torah. Oberst says his texts for the one-acts, drawn from the Amplified Bible and the JPS Tanakh, respectively, are faithful to the original languages and fresh on the ear.

The Los Angeles-based actor has played killers and villains in 100 movies, and his guest appearances on Criminal Minds landed him on the network's list of the show's Most Notorious Serial Killers, but Oberst said the stage, where he spent the first 15 years of his career, is his first love. Besides Jesus Of Nazareth and The Book Of Genesis, Oberst has just launched a college tour of a new theatrical reading, Ray Bradbury's Pillar Of Fire, and he tours annually in A One-Man Christmas Carol.

"I love language," Oberst said, "and since many of my screen roles are somewhat less than eloquent, theater is my therapy."