OBERAMMERGAU, Germany (RNS) Taking just a quick look at this picturesque Bavarian town, it would be easy to lump it in with a whole host of other nearby villages.

Skiing? Check. Local sought-after souvenirs? Check (in this case, wood carving). Quaint inns with generous helpings of beer, schnitzel and sausage? Check, check and check.

But looking closer, one notices a fair number of men with Woodstock-style hippy beards. Children skip sports for choir or music practice. And in almost every home and restaurant, rows of pictures depicts generation after generationof actors dressed up like they’re going to costume party hosted by a Roman emperor.

Welcome to Oberammergau as it prepares for its once-a-decade dramatic retelling of the death of Jesus.

The show is, in many ways, the lifeblood of the town. The five-times-a-week performances bring in millions of euros from the hundreds of thousands of guests that will come here from May to October. Nearly half of the town’s 5,200 residents are involved in one way or another.

“It’s not like you fear the role, but you have a great respect for it,” says Frederik Mayet, one of the two men who will play Jesus in this year’s performance.

Mayet, who played the apostle John in the 2000 production, knows audiences and critics will have their own expectations of how Jesus should be. And not all of them will be happy with his performance.

“When I found out I got the role, I was extremely happy. It was total euphoria,” says Mayet, who is press spokesman to the show’s director in his day job. “A few days later, I began to think, uh-oh, this is a pretty big roll.”

Twenty major roles are cast each year, with two people assigned to each part so actors can balance the show with their regular lives. Thousands of extras are cast as background players, many of them tasked with shouting and reacting to the events on stage. Still others sing in the chorus or play in the orchestra.

To be considered for a part, one must be a native of the town or have lived there for at least 20 years. Mayor Arno Nunn says anyone who wants to participate can.

Jonas Konsek, one of the men playing Peter, says he has to balance the demands of the play with his studies in Munich — an hour away — while making it clear to the people at his internship that there is a good reason for his wild hair and beard.

Otto Huber, the show’s dramatist and cast as a narrator for the third consecutive time, says the show binds together the people of Oberammergau.

“We are not telling this story as the most faithful people of Europe,” he says. “Instead, maybe by acting it out, we will understand what is essential … that our reality is more than a Mercedes car … that there could be something behind it.”