NGDP Posted April 29, 2009 Posted April 29, 2009 The new issue of Rolling Stone has an article about the musical. I don't have a scanner so I'm gonna type it out.Full of rock anthems, larger-than-life characters and heavy political themes, Green Day's 2004 album American Idiot felt ready for the stage from the very first listen. Now the smash record is being turned into a musical by Michael Mayer, director of the Broadway hit Spring Awakening, and will debut September 4th at the Berkeley Repertory Theatre in the band's hometown of Berkeley, California. "I can play the shit out of the guitar," says frontman Billie Joe Armstrong, who recently finished recording Green Day's new LP 21st Century Breakdown, due May 15th. "But I don't know anything about putting something like that together." Mayer, who collaborated with folk rocker Duncan Sheik on Spring Awakening first approached the band in 2007 about adapting American Idiot - a concept album centered around disillusioned teens coming of age during the Bush years. "I became instantly obsessed with the album," says Mayer. "By my third listen, I thought to myself, 'this is an opera that needs to be staged.'" Mayer invited Armstrong to New York to see his musical. "At the end of the evening, Billie Joe said, 'Go for it. Start putting it together.' recalls Mayer. Without a linear plot American Idiot left Mayer a lot of room for the script. "The ambiguity of the actual narrative was a blessing," he says, "All I had to do was make up stories." Mayer and Armstrong fleshed out the story by phone and e-mail. "He picked my brain about St. Jimmy and Jesus Of Suburbia, and how these characters relate." says Armstrong. Mayer divided the piece into three stories: One character goes to Iraq; two others stay at home trying to make sense of the post 9/11 America, The cast of 19 mostly unknown actors sings every American Idiot track, plus two B Sides and a few Breakdown cuts. There's not much dialogue; letters from one character to his parents, from the liner notes, serve as narration. Rehearsals start in July, but workshops are under way. "These people were onstage singing my songs - it was kind of like being invited to your own funeral," says Armstrong. "It blew me away."I'm not really sure if there's a lot of new info in there, but it's a good read.
NGDP Posted April 29, 2009 Author Posted April 29, 2009 My computer shut down right when I posted it, and I didn't think it posted so I posted it again. Sorry....
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