American Idiot Musical (Theatrical Production)

[J'net]

http://www.spin.com/articles/green-day-mus...t-silver-screen Dont know if the info has been posted but here it is.

Awesome!

Wow! Amazingly great things are happening in the world. The start must be in some kind of special alignment or something .

[elanorelle72]

hehe and then we have to start having events with costumes and props

I want to be St. Jimmy

I think i look sexy as a boy...

maybe my bf can go as Whatsername...seeing him in fishnet stockings ,,,, :whistling:

[MassHysteria]

No cast updates today, but I do have info about other people involved in the production, and info about the production, all found in a press release from Berkeley Rep today. Here it is, minus stuff we already know.

JULY 28, 2009 – Today Berkeley Repertory Theatre announced the creative team for its world

premiere of American Idiot.

It features the work of Olivier Award-winning choreographer Steven Hoggett and music supervisor Tom Kitt, the Tony-winning composer who provided string arrangements for the band’s latest album, 21st Century Breakdown. The design team includes Tony-nominee Christine Jones (sets), two-time Tony-winner Kevin Adams (lights), Baryshnikov fellow Andrea Lauer (costumes), and Obie Award-winner Brian Ronan (sound), as well as video designer Darrel Maloney. Berkeley Rep presents the show in association with Tom Hulce and Ira Pittelman, the lead producers of Spring Awakening.

Tickets are available now at berkeleyrep.org as part of a subscription to the season, which includes six other hot new shows. The remaining seats go on sale to the public on August 16, starting at only $32 - half that for anyone under 30 years of age.

“We've been working with Michael Mayer and the show's creative team for quite some time, so we know how super-talented all of them are," Armstrong remarks. "Each and every one of these people has gone above and beyond for this show, and we can't wait for our fans to see it.”

“It’s an incredible experience to create a modern rock opera with one of the most innovative and clever bands in the world,” Mayer comments. “We are excited to put this show in front of a sophisticated Bay Area audience.”

“American Idiot is an iconic rock album from a band that hails from our hometown,” adds Tony Taccone, artistic director of Berkeley Rep. “It requires a singularly talented creative team tore-imagine this music for a traditional theatre setting. We are proud to collaborate with Green Day, Michael Mayer, and a small army of artists to bring American Idiot to the stage. This is an ambitious project, and I believe it will showcase the full measure of Berkeley Rep’s resources and talents.”

American Idiot follows working-class characters from the suburbs to the city to the Middle East, as they seek redemption in a world filled with frustration – an exhilarating journey borne along by Green Day’s electrifying songs. This high-octane show includes every song from the album, as well as several new songs from 21st Century Breakdown. With an onstage band and 19 young performers, American Idiot receives its world premiere at Berkeley Rep, the Tony winning playhouse that launched last year’s provocative rock musical Passing Strange.

Then it has nice recap of all these people that are involved, but I'll also give you a face to the names:

Michael Mayer (director) received a 2007 Tony Award, as well as Drama Desk and Outer Critics Circle Awards, for the Tony Award-winning musical Spring Awakening. His other Broadway credits include After the Fall; An Almost Holy Picture; The Lion in Winter; ’night, Mother; Side Man (Drama Desk and Outer Critics Circle Awards); Thoroughly Modern Millie (Drama Desk Award and Tony nomination); Triumph of Love; Uncle Vanya; A View From the Bridge (Drama Desk and Outer Critics Circle Awards and Tony nomination); and You're a Good Man, Charlie Brown (Tony nomination). In addition to Spring Awakening at Atlantic Theater Company, his off-Broadway credits include 10 Million Miles, America Dreaming, Antigone in New York, Baby Anger, The Credeaux Canvas, Everyday Rapture, Hundreds of Hats, Missing Persons, Our House, Round About, Stupid Kids, True History and Real Adventures, and View of the Dome. He also directed the national tours for Spring Awakening, Thoroughly Modern Millie, and Angels in America (Jefferson and Carbonell Awards). On London’s West End, Mayer staged the current production of Spring Awakening, as well as Side Man and Thoroughly Modern Millie. His films include A Home at the End of the World and Flicka.

Steven Hoggett (choreographer) is co-founder and artistic director of Frantic Assembly, directing and choreographing all of its productions. His recent Frantic work includes Dirty Wonderland, Hymns, Othello, (pool) no water, and Stockholm. Hoggett served as assistant director and choreographer for Black Watch with the National Theatre of Scotland, earning the 2009 Olivier Award for Best Choreography. The show won many awards and enjoyed two world tours, including two runs at St. Ann’s Warehouse in New York. He has worked on several other NTS productions as well, including 365, The Bacchae, and The Wolves in the Wall. His credits as a choreographer and movement director in his native Britain also include Bare Bones Dance Company, the National Theatre, Paines Plough Theatre Company, ROH2 (the Royal Opera House in Linbury), the Stephen Joseph Theatre, and the West Yorkshire Playhouse. In addition, he has provided choreography for Prada, Radio One, Selfridges, and the award-winning TV commercial “Harmonious Dance” for Orange Mobile.

Tom Kitt (music supervisor / arrangements / orchestrations) composed the new musical Next to Normal, which netted him two Tony Awards (Best Original Score with Brian Yorkey and Best Orchestrations with Michael Starobin) and the Outer Critics Circle Award for Best New Score. As a composer, his other credits include the Broadway production of High Fidelity and the off- Broadway production of From Up Here at Manhattan Theatre Club. As a musical director, conductor, and arranger for Broadway and off-Broadway shows, his credits include 13, Debbie Does Dallas, Everyday Rapture, Hair, Laugh Whore, and Urban Cowboy. He is the proud leader of the Tom Kitt Band, and his original songs have been featured in film and TV.

No pics for the next one:

Christine Jones (scenic design) earned a Tony nomination for Spring Awakening, and also designed the Broadway production of The Green Bird, directed by Julie Taymor. Her off-Broadway credits include The Book of Longing at Lincoln Center Festival, based on the poems of Leonard Cohen with music by Philip Glass; Burn This at Signature Theatre Company, starring Ed Norton and Dallas Roberts; Debbie Does Dallas at Jane Street Theatre; Much Ado About Nothing at The Public Theatre/New York Shakespeare Festival; and Nocturne at New York Theatre Workshop. She has also created scenery for regional theatres across America and for operas, such as The Elephant Man at the Minnesota Opera, Giulio Cesare at Houston Grand Opera, and Lucia de Lammermoor at New York City Opera. She is the artistic director of Theatre for One, a space inspired by peep show booths and confessionals, which can be seen at theatreforone.com.

Kevin Adams (lighting design) designed Berkeley Rep’s production of Passing Strange, which moved to Broadway in 2008. He received a Tony Award in 2007 for his work on Spring Awakening, another Tony in 2008 for The 39 Steps, and two more Tony nominations in 2009 for Hair and Next to Normal. His other Broadway credits include An Almost Holy Picture featuring Kevin Bacon, Eve Ensler's The Good Body, John Leguizamo's Sexaholix, and Take Me Out. In 2002, he earned an Obie Award for Sustained Excellence, honoring his designs for off-Broadway shows such as Magnetic Fields’ 69 Love Songs and the original production of Hedwig and the Angry Inch. His work has also been seen at the Donmar Warehouse, the Kennedy Center, New York City Opera, Steppenwolf Theatre Company, and in London's West End, Japan, and Korea.

Andrea Lauer (costume design) created costumes for The Butcher of Baraboo at Second Stage Theatre, Elephant Dreams at The Joyce Theatre, and Status Entropus, a multimedia dance performance presented in New York City and Thessaloniki, Greece. She also designed New York University’s productions of Hair and Our Lady of 121st Street, as well as numerous shows for the Alley Theatre including After the Fall, And Then There Were None, Black Comedy, The Crucible, Fully Committed, Glengarry Glen Ross, Proof, Steel Magnolias, The Thirteenth Chair, The Woman in Black, Wait Until Dark, and Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? Lauer’s upcoming work includes Or with Women’s Project and a new ballet for the Trey McIntyre Experience. She is a recipient of the Baryshnikov Fellowship and holds an MFA from Tisch School of the Arts at NYU.

Brian Ronan (sound designer) has a long list of Broadway credits that includes 1776, All Shook Up, The Boys from Syracuse, Cabaret, Curtains, Fortune’s Fool, Grease, Grey Gardens, Little Me, The Look of Love, Master Harold… and the Boys, Next to Normal, Pajama Game, The Rainmaker, Spring Awakening, State Fair, The Tale of the Allergist’s Wife, Triumph of Love, Twelve Angry Men, and You’re a Good Man, Charlie Brown. Off Broadway, he designed Saved and Bug, for which he won Obie and Lucille Lortel Awards.

Darrel Maloney (video and projections designer) As the creative director and co-founder of Atmosphere 13, he produced, designed, and developed motion graphics for broadcast, commercials, film, and special media. His work has been seen on HBO Undercover’s Crank: Made in America, MTV’s Summer Gig, and Martha Stewart’s Christmas Special on CBS. Other clients include ABC Networks, Comedy Central, Discovery Channel, ESPN, Food Network, Merrill Lynch, Showtime, and Universal Television. Maloney holds a BA and MFA from NYU, and he has designed sets and lights for numerous productions in New York, in Europe, and at regional theatres across the United States, including The Beggar’s Opera off Broadway, Deliverance at the Institute for Contemporary Arts in London, Four Scenes in a Harsh Life at Los Angeles Theatre Center, and Richard III at Hartford Stage.

They also have a list of special events:

You can view the original PDF here:

http://berkeleyrep.org/press/pr/0910/Berke...eative_team.pdf

[Nova-Caine]

This thing is just sounding better by the day

Thanks for the updates

x

[Tripe]

Awesome information, MassHysteria! You always have something good when I come over to this thread.

I know people who didn't get tickets for the premiere dates will be glad to hear about the ticket sale availability coming up on August 16. Wow, very inexpensive tickets for this production, especially if you are under 30!

HAHA about the comparisons between a possible AI movie and Rocky Horror!

Will we get to throw toast at the screen?

[Waiting901]

Or hotdogs?

It would be great if this play was made into a movie.

[MassHysteria]

woops, noticed the list of special events wasn't showing, now thats been fixed

[elanorelle72]

just had a listen to some of the music from Next To Normal

holy crap!

my ears are singing from the possibilties of arrangements and things

oOOHHHHHHHHHHHHHH

[elanorelle72]

I cannot go to the Sept 4th event etc

however I will be at the Sept 10th event...and there is a pre-talk before hand

for those who are in town that time...lets get together before hand:) and then go to the pre-talk

there will be three of us ,..me, my BF and his sister

PM if you want to get together at Berkely before hand for nibbles

xxoo

[MassHysteria]

I have a good number of updates, of both new cast members, and of who is playing who. Lets start with who's playing who:

Johnny (JOS) - John Gallagher Jr.

St. Jimmy - Tony Vincent

Whatshername - Rebecca Naomi Jones

Will - Michael Esper

Tunny - Matt Caplan

Heather - Mary Faber

As you may have have noticed, we have 3 new names in that list, so let me tell you a bit about them:

First, lets introduce you to Rebecca Naomi Jones who will be playing Whatshername:

Here is a biography from the Passing Strange website (the last production she was involved in:

I was born at Beth Israel hospital in New York City. According to my parents, my dad sang to me right then and there. I lifted my tiny hands up and moved my fingers to the music, and he went proclaiming in the hallway “She has long fingers! She’s gonna play the piano!” My dad was the longtime musical director of a Doo-Wop group called The Cadillacs and he was thrilled to know that I would be carrying the torch. He was right, too. My love affair with music blossomed shortly thereafter.

Despite years of being separated from friends in class for entertaining them during lesson time, subjecting my parents to impromptu skit performances in full costume, and weekly leotard-clad viewings of A Chorus Line the movie on VCR, it wasn’t actually until the sixth grade that I realized the joy of acting. Reluctantly I allowed my friend Claude to drag me to auditions for the fifth and sixth grade production of Rudyard Kipling’s Jungle Book, where I subsequently wowed the director with my choice of growly cat voice for the role of Bagheera the fearless panther! I was hooked.

I found what I wanted to do with my life at a very young age and my parents supported that. A photographer and a musician, they understood how important it was to cultivate my artistic nature. Every day of the week they were committed to getting me to one lesson or another after school: piano lessons, dance class, children’s chorus at the Metropolitan Opera — to grow up in New York City and have this culture at my doorstep was the greatest gift. And in this city, having a black dad and a Jewish mom wasn’t unheard of and it didn’t make me a freak. It made me proud.

In high school I was immersed in rich ideas and challenged to think bigger under the guidance of great teachers and artists, and then was off to North Carolina for college. I was so lucky to find a conservatory wherein I was pushed to my emotional and physical limits on a daily basis, and at the same time understood in a community of peers. I loved school. The lessons I learned there were life lessons that stretch far beyond the realm of acting. My spectrum was broadened and opportunities abounded.

Working on Passing Strange has been the greatest culmination of things that matter to me. Not only has it been cathartic to me as a biracial woman to work on a piece about finding your fit, but it’s also reawakened my commitment to making music. A few months ago I ran into an old friend of mine from day camp. She writes and produces music now and asked if I would come to her studio and collaborate with her on some material. The second I put on the headphones it felt like home. I am so thankful for music and theater in my life. They have taken me to countries all over the world, allowed me to work on multi-faceted and meaty texts, introduced me to all the cool kids in school, and allowed me to play lots and lots of dress-up. For money!

Learn more about Rebecca at rebeccajones.com and on Rebecca's myspace page.

http://www.negroproblem.com/passing/pages/rebecca.html

Next we have Matt Caplan, who will be playing Tunny. I recognize him from one of my favorite films, Across The Universe:

I found this on his Myspace:

Matt is a native New Yorker who has been writing and playing his own music for over a decade. An accomplished guitar player, he has produced 2 all acoustic albums, ranging in influence from folk to rock to classical, of which he has sold thousands of copies. A diligent self-promoter, he has toured in over 30 states, building a fanbase through college campuses, local bars, music venues, record sales and downloads. His second cd Overtones (2004) moved instantly to the “Top Seller” category on cdbaby.com, and his MySpace site has garnered over 6,000 friends to date. He can often be seen playing in New York at The Bitter End, Knitting Factory, Crash Mansion, CBGB’s gallery, and many other venues. He is currently working on his first full-band record release.

http://www.myspace.com/mattcaplan

Finally, we have Michael Esper who will be playing Will:

I found this bio on Theatermania.com

Born in New York, New York, Michael Esper has starred in two A.R. Gurney New York premieres, Big Bill at Lincoln Center Theater and Crazy Mary at Playwrights Horizons. Esper has also been in the plays My, Myself and I and The Four of Us. He recently made his Broadway debut in A Man for All Seasons starring Frank Langella.

http://www.unplugged.theatermania.com/cast...hael-Esper.html

This is all shaping up really nicely. I think its awesome we have an inter-racial couple!

[J'net]

I have a good number of updates, of both new cast members, and of who is playing who. Lets start with who's playing who:

Johnny (JOS) - John Gallagher Jr.

St. Jimmy - Tony Vincent

Whatshername - Rebecca Naomi Jones

Will - Michael Esper

Tunny - Matt Caplan

Heather - Mary Faber

...

This is all shaping up really nicely. I think its awesome we have an inter-racial couple!

I think it's looking great! I love the look of Whatsername. She just somehow looks perfect for the part to me.

I don't recognize Matt Kaplan from Across the Universe. I'm guessing he must have been one of the peripheral characters at the college or something???

Anyway - it all looks great to me, and I'm more excited by the minute!

[Nova-Caine]

Wow whatsername is stunning

[J'net]

Wow whatsername is stunning

I agree, and she also has a certain kind of ... I don't know ... vibe or something that I think is perfect for the character (this just from looking at her picture)!

[Nova-Caine]

I agree, and she also has a certain kind of ... I don't know ... vibe or something that I think is perfect for the character (this just from looking at her picture)!

You mean she's a sassy lil thang with attitude

They should've got me for the part

[MassHysteria]

I think it's looking great! I love the look of Whatsername. She just somehow looks perfect for the part to me.

I don't recognize Matt Kaplan from Across the Universe. I'm guessing he must have been one of the peripheral characters at the college or something???

Anyway - it all looks great to me, and I'm more excited by the minute!

Yeah, he's one of Max's friends at college... I've watched that movie more that is probably healthy, lol

[J'net]

Yeah, he's one of Max's friends at college... I've watched that movie more that is probably healthy, lol

I've watched it a fair few times myself .

[simone18]

the girl who plays whatsername is really pretty but i thought she would look different^^

[GDM]

Ah, I saw Whatsername in Passing Strange and she was great!

Also, I see that the assistant choreographer of Black Watch will do this show. Black Watch was one of the best shows I've seen. Excellent staging all around, particularly a scene that covered the 300 year history of the Scottish Black Watch with dynamic costume changes on stage.

Wow, this is very yummy.

[Tripe]

OOH, I think Ms. Jones looks perfect for Whatsername!!

[Ivy Ramsbottom]

So, is Sept. 4 "the day" to go to the show as it's the opening? I'm ready to buy tickets, but don't know when to go!

[Guest Shangri-La]

Whatsername is perfect!

I cannot go to the Sept 4th event etc

however I will be at the Sept 10th event...and there is a pre-talk before hand

for those who are in town that time...lets get together before hand:) and then go to the pre-talk

there will be three of us ,..me, my BF and his sister

PM if you want to get together at Berkely before hand for nibbles

xxoo

Suzanne! What day are you getting to Berkeley???

[drumstick]

http://www.spin.com/articles/green-day-mus...t-silver-screen Dont know if the info has been posted but here it is.

Awesome!

that's awesome

I would like so badly to see it here in Croatia!

[LilyMarie]

I love the casting so far!!

Goddammit!

*tries desperately to figure out what she could sell to raise the cost of plane/show tickets*

[vtashleyt]

I'm so excited that this combines two of my favorite things -- musical theater and Green Day. It sounds like it's shaping up to be a really promising project. I'm especially psyched about John Gallagher, Jr.'s involvement. In my opinion, his performance was the single best thing about Spring Awakening. He's a really engaging, dynamic actor. The rest of the casting is looking good, too. I wish I were going to be able to see it in Berkeley, but I'm hoping that it gets a run in New York afterwards.

[Tripe]

So, is Sept. 4 "the day" to go to the show as it's the opening? I'm ready to buy tickets, but don't know when to go!

I believe a lot of people from GDC are going either the 4th, which is the first Preview Night, or the 5th. Neither is really "Opening Night." That comes later - September 15 - when all the Preview Nights are over and they have worked out some of the bugs and issues that most productions have in the beginning. I am pretty sure that tickets to the Preview nights are no longer available, although you might want to contact the Berkeley Rep box office to find out for sure. Sometimes single tickets are still available even though the website doesn't allow you to purchase them through the site.

Tickets to the official run of the production go on sale in August sometime. No exact date is on the site, but I would think it would be soon. EDIT: Looks like August 7, so just a couple of days from now!. It looks like it runs August 15-October 11. If you can't get to one of the Previews, I'd recommend going on the 17th, 25th, or 29th. Those performances haved "Post Show Discussions" afterward that I think would be really interesting to attend!