Thursday, April 01, 2010
How Green Day’s ‘American Idiot’ Made Broadway
NYTimes.com: "AS they assessed the pre-Broadway tryout of the new musical “American Idiot” in California last fall, the director, Michael Mayer, and his creative team kept coming back to the same question: Should they add more dialogue to flesh out the tormented journeys of the three main characters or continue to rely on the songs — by the band Green Day — to do the storytelling?"
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11 comments:
While I don't know how excited I am to have this musical on Broadway...I enjoyed this article. It's interesting to hear the struggle to stay true to the musical while still trying to express creative freedom and create a new piece of work. The examples of actual shows that they used as research also give this article a great deal more depth. There are many issues with using an already popularly established album of songs as the musical songs. Luckily it seems that having a flexible band helped a great deal and was open to the musical director's interpretations and creations. This show would be interesting, in order to see how the musical incorporated and altered the album.
I can't not notice the simularities between Spring Awakening and American Idiot. It seems Mr. Mayer knew he had a hit on his hands and this started looking for other rock material to turn into a rock musical and whoop- American Idiot by Green Day is the answer. I mean the articles makes references as well to the previous musical Mr. Mayer created. One would be dumb not to notice the smularities, which is why I am skeptical of this show. Green Day describes it as "real theater". More like recreation- unoriginal theater if you ask me.
My dislike for Green Day aside, I am interested in seeing how far this musical goes. It really seems to be like nothing else I have heard of, which regardless of it's inspiration makes me want to see it do well. Rock operas have existed for a while, but this one seems to actually focus on the rock part of rock opera rather then the opera part, which I think should serve it well since there are still rabid fans of Green Day out there.
When I first heard about American Idiot, I was confused as to what exactly would come from using their music as the inspiration and focal point for a musical. While the show seems to be about as punk-rock as Green Day is; it does seem to not fall victim to the traditional images and nuisances of most modern musicals, which I think will serve it well in the long run.
Like Ariel, I can't say I'm exactly excited for this musical, but I can't just brush it under the rug either. I myself am not exactly a huge Green day fan, but that shouldn't effect how well the story and play is done. Sure I may dislike the music, but that doesn't mean there's necessarily a poor production. Mr. Mayer definitely seems to be putting alot of in depth work into this musical, though it does seem quite a bit like Spring Awakening. His niche definitely seems to be of young teenage angst.
I feel like this musical is coming out at the wrong time. I feel like the Green Day buzz has sort of died down. I remember when American Idiot came out and the hype that surrounded it. The music was constantly on the radio and Green Day's rhetoric was rampant in pop culture. But this is the past. Now, American Idiot songs occasionally pop up in shuffle, but more often than not, I skip it. This musical will either be a come back for Green Day, rejuvenating the hype, or it will prove to be an example of a musical that might have worked at a different time.
While the idea of letting a popular band's songs tell the story in a production, it seems like if your show is completely song-heavy and very light on dialogue you've just created a really elaborate cover band. A lot of people who are going to want to see American Idiot will be big Green Day fans, and I would expect that every time a musical number begins, the audience's first thought will be, "Oh man, I LOVE this song!" rather than, "Let's see where this takes the story!"
Jon Mark might be right about Green Days popularity dying down, but this is probably the perfect way for them to make their popularity come back up. I think that teen angst musicals are great marketing ideas, whether they are unoriginal or not. Lots of teens with rich parents will want to see this show, just like they wanted to see Spring Awakening, and their parents will probably get them tickets. I hope that this musical actually makes people who are not normally that interested in theatre have more of an interest, it could.
I agree with Hannah, too, that it does cause a bit of an issue that audiences will just go to hear the music and not actually go to see what the story is going to be. It's all a great way to make money though.
i am a fan of green day and i think it would be interesting to see how they piece together the story line with the absence of dialogue. i want to see how far this musical can go, although the teenage angst is getting kind of cliché.
I think the biggest issue with this musical is its timeliness. With the material of the album being so specific to when it was released, it may not translate well, 6 years later, especially to anybody younger than college age. While the concept of trying to tell the story through the songs along is interesting, I think it's severely limiting. Especially as the article mentions how a 9 minute long song had to be adapted. There seems to be little difference between this and a concert. If the intent is to let the songs speak for themselves, then why not just leave the story the tell to the imagination of the listeners?
I think everything you guys are saying about green day's music being outdated, and this being a wishy washy idea because the songs aren't too great is exactly why they should be going through with this. I agree with Allegra...this is exactly what theatre and art is about. It's taking an idea, a story, and interpreting it in a different fashion in your own light. Everyone who I know who has seen it said it was an incredible story and show, and for non-green day fans (I am personally indifferent), the sound changes when you blare it in front of a really killer set, with awesome dancing and singing and lights. It's taking an already established good idea/story, and interpreting it differently. How many freaking ways has Alice In Wonderland been interpreted? So in my opinion, the outdated songs aren't an issue. Good music that tells a good story can always tell a good story...and I know there's some controversy as to whether it's good music, but the success of the initial album was so huge that I think it's pretty solid. And the reviews have been great so far...The concept is what sounds weird, but I'm getting more and more used to it.
I agree with Shar. I think this is a great idea for this production to go on. While a lot of the audience members may just be fans of the band looking for their music fix like Hannah said, that says more about the audience then the show itself. I think that the show could be really great. It takes a lot of creativity to take the music that is already established and know and transform it into a story that fits together and isn't going to be boring. If they can effectively manage that, I think it could be great.
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