“Artists can’t get anywhere without patrons,” Clemente said of joining forces with Sirk. “He loves the band. He loves what we’re trying to do.” Now the benefactor, who said he has increased the show’s original budget from about $80,000 to about $250,000, has upped the stakes once again.

Tonight, the rock opera starts a run of 10 shows over four consecutive weekends at the recently reopened, 1,200-seat Wilbur Theatre, which has been dark since last year’s run of “The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee.” And Sirk is prepared to make an even greater investment. With help from a few business partners, he has put in an offer to buy the Wilbur, which was put on the market earlier this year. If Sirk owns the Wilbur, he can keep the rock opera running as its resident show.

He’d occasionally rent out the venue to other acts, he said, but for most of the year, locals and tourists would know the Wilbur as the place to see about two dozen Boston musicians performing two acts of serious anthem rock. That means this first run at the Wilbur is high stakes, and Clemente said the cast is feeling it. For more than a week now, the Ultrasonic Rock Orchestra has spent its nights getting used to the Wilbur acoustics and putting personal lives on hold for the monthlong run.

Most of the performers have day jobs. New cast member Ted Whiteside, 30, who also performs in a Led Zeppelin cover band, works for the Boston Public Library. C. Moon Mullins, 38, who has been a cast member since the show’s inception, is an AIDS researcher at the Harvard School of Public Health.