Green Day Going Broadway In Berkeley With "American Idiot"
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Artist:
Green Day are taking their 2004 concept album American Idiot to the stage, and I'm not talking the concert stage. Its bye bye amps, bye bye LEDs, bye bye multi-million dollar stadium sound systems.
Working with Spring Awakening and Tony award winnning director Michael Mayer, Green Day are reworking their Grammy knabbing, 12x platinum album for the red curtain at the Berkeley Repertory Theater in California. Scheduled to run September 4th through October 11th (perfect timing for the "Wake Me Up When September Ends" number) it will mark the Berkely Rep's first production of the theater's 2009-10 and if all goes well the production could end up on Broadway.
Getting the ball rolling on the project was a process. Mayer and his producing partner Tom Hulce approached the band about the project two years ago. It took a summer of instumental conversions, and a winter's worth of adding choreography before Green Day gave the project their stamp of approval.
The album, a rock opera inspired by the Who's Tommy, follows the life of anti-hero Jesus of Suburbia (JOS) through post 9-11 and war hungry America. Nineteen characters in their early 20s make-up the cast, although no names have been announced.
"It doesn't make a lot of sense," frontman Billie Joe Armstrong told the New York Times in an interview, "but that's what I love about it. When people see it, it's going to be my wildest dream."
Comments (11)
Oh my god, this looks awesome! xD!!!
i was thinking the same thing :)
This could be great! And far more powerful than the Spiderman show that U2 is doing the music for that is to come to Broadway sometime. At $40 million to put that thing on, it will take them years just to reach break-even!
Also read Quadrophenia will be put on the stage in London. Could be worth crossing the pond to see that!
I saw Spring Awakening on Broadway shortly after it opened and I said to my wife it should win the Tony for Best Musical- glad it did! Really very well done.
I wasn't a Duncan Sheik fan but his music was really perfect for that.
And the director, Michael Mayer really made it come together so well. I know it took them like 7 years to get it to Broadway but it worked so it was worth it. Key will be the choreography. Bill Jones did the choreography for Spring Awakening and really made the key numbers- with titles you can't print in a family newspaper (like "The B*tch of Living" and "Totally F#cked!")- really pop. Those were probably the best numbers. Soundtrack is recommended. As is the one for Passing Strange by Stew and Heidi Rodewald. Didn't run as long on B'way (it wasn't staged properly; should have stayed on a smaller stage Off-B'way) but it wasn't the music's fault- great stuff.
I wanna go!!!!!! :)
i'm pissed i didnt see spring awakening now
It will either be excellent or a flop.
i have a feeling the spiderman thing will be a flop and the spring awakening thing will be an ass kicker
wow.....greenday just keeps getting suckier and suckier. how much more can these talentless hacks sell-out?
and please don't reference the who and these douchebags in the same article....at least the who are fairly decent musicians.
you probably havent you ever seen the Broadway version of Tommy? which the who sold themselves out for in the mid-nineties. people gotta eat somehow. when i saw the theater version of tommy, townshend was even playing on guitar...soo...ummmm...
Looks promising. As a growing theatre fan, I would love to see this. Yeah, I'm pissed too that I never saw Spring Awakening.
charley-
wtf are you talking about? by the mid-nineties the who were long considered 'done' by any stretch of the imagination. they haven't done anything relevant since the late 70's.
regardless, their past history and back catalogue puts them in the upper pantheon of rock musicians. imo, they were second only to led zep as far as hard rock musicianship/showmanship is concerned.
can anyone truly say the same for greenday? highly doubtful. can you compare them to the clash, black flag, kennedys, or even (jokingly) the pistols? no. they took a dying style of music and drove it further into the ground, opening the door for hot topic poseur wannabes everywhere to don their skinny jeans and fashionably retro dead kennedys shirts and claim they were 'punks'. and now you guys wanna lay claim to being 'theatre fans'.
laughable.