COVID-19 claimed plenty of casualties in the theater world.

The expanded 33-piece orchestra accompanying “Jesus Christ Superstar” in Cleveland won’t be one of them.

The national tour of “Jesus Christ Superstar” was two shows into its three-week run at the Connor Palace when everything shut down in March 2020. Playhouse Square CEO Gina Vernaci teamed with Work Light Productions, producers of the national tour, to triple the size of the 11-piece orchestra featured in other cities for the Cleveland run.

Stephen Gabriel, president and executive producer of Work Light, said they considered scrapping the larger ensemble for the tour’s return — its three-week run starts Tuesday, but Vernaci argued to keep i

“What’s a better thing to say we’re back than a 33-piece orchestra in its full power, its full glory,” Gabriel said during a telephone interview. “We all gave a little because we wanted that to happen …. I’m so excited we’re returning to Cleveland. I feel like we’re closing a very important loop.”

The idea behind expanding the orchestra was to recreate the sound of the original “Jesus Christ Superstar” album, which was released in fall 1970 and became one of the top-selling albums of 1971. Among its many, many fans is Gabriel.

“I was really inspired as a kid by that album,” he said. “My dad bought me a copy of the brown album when I was 10 years old and had just started guitar lessons. I literally wore that album out learning to play guitar by playing through the guitar on that album. It was really meaningful to me at a young age.”

Expanding the orchestra involved more than just hiring 22 additional musicians. The 11 musicians touring with the show are visible throughout the show performing from the second level of the set. They didn’t want to hide the additional musicians in the pit, Gabriel said, so they decided to use the three levels of boxes on each side of the stage for the string players.

“We had to bring the lighting designer back in because at that moment we expanded the width of the stage,” he said. “When you’re constructing a show, lighting tells you what you need to be looking at. Once you light up the sides, people are going to look left and right.”

The sound designer also was called back to make sure that larger ensemble wouldn’t overwhelm the vocalists on stage.

While the expanded orchestra was salvaged, one unadvertised perk of the 2020 Cleveland run won’t be a part of the show in 2022. The tour needed a short-term replacement for the role of Pontius Pilate, and Adam Pascal (a Tony Award nominee who originated the role of Roger in “Rent” and also has appeared on Broadway in such musicals as “Aida” and “Something Rotten) was hired. Gabriel said he was on a flight to Cleveland when the tour was put on hold (Pascal is coming to Cleveland, but it’s in the national tour of “Pretty Woman the Musical,” which opens March 8 at the Connor Palace).

Gabriel described himself as an “optimist” when it comes to theater’s long-term future, but he said theatrical producers are going to have to endure a transitional period where breaking even will have to be considered success as the industry endures lingering problems caused by the COVID-19 pandemic.

“We have to keep pursuing it,” Gabriel said. “Even though we’ve had to cancel some shows due to COVID, there are so many more success stories. It’s important to look at those.”

He said taxpayers should be happy that the government programs created to provide financial support during the pandemic have worked as intended, and those program have done more than put actors back to work.

“The hotels care. The restaurants care. Main street USA lives off live entertainment,” Gabriel said. “Cleveland is a bigger market but those downtown restaurants will shutter if we don’t bring thousands of people every week to the theater.”

If you go …

WHAT: “Jesus Christ Superstar”

WHEN: Tuesday through Feb. 20. Show times are 7:30 p.m. Tuesday through Friday, 1:30 and 7:30 p.m. Saturday and 1 and 6:30 p.m. Sunday

WHERE: Connor Palace, Playhouse Square, 1519 Euclid Ave., Cleveland

HOW MUCH: Tickets range from $59 to $159 and are available online at playhousesquare.org and by calling 216-241-6000.