Green Day's "American Idiot" Musical Fills Out Creative Team

Green Day have rounded out the creative team that will help turn the band's 2004 rock opera American Idiot into a musical. Joining director Michael Mayer, who also worked on the Tony Award-winning Spring Awakening, are choreographer Steven Hoggett and music supervisor Tom Kitt. American Idiot the musical will run from September 3rd to October 11th at California's Berkeley Rep. Tickets are available now with a subscription to the Berkeley Rep's season, while remaining seats are available to the public starting August 16th.

(Click here for the full story behind Green Day's American Idiot musical.)

"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," Billie Joe Armstrong said in a statement. "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." Spring Awakening lead producers Ira Pittleman and Tom Hulce are producing the musical. (Yes, that Tom Hulce who played "Pinto" in National Lampoon's Animal House.)

(Look back at Green Day's career from their Gilman Street days to their latest Breakdown.)

Even though they just ironed out the creative team behind the musical — and the band is fully immersed on tour for their 21st Century Breakdown — frontman Armstrong already has his eyes on the big screen, telling the AP he'd love to see American Idiot as a feature film. "I thought American Idiot had a lot in common with something like Rocky Horror Picture Show," Armstrong said. "It would great to see a film made out of it someday too." Armstrong's quotes echo what he told Rolling Stone's David Fricke last month. "This record has more in common with Rocky Horror than Leonard Cohen," Armstrong said.

Related Stories:
• The Birth of Green Day's "American Idiot" Musical
• Green Day's "American Idiot" Musical to Debut September '09
• Green Day's Buildup to the Breakdown

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Song Stories

“Smells Like Teen Spirit”

Nirvana | 1991

"Smells Like Teen Spirit," named after a brand of deodorant marketed to girls, was Kurt Cobain's attempt to "write the ultimate pop song," he said, using the soft-loud dynamic of his favorite band, the Pixies. Cobain "had that dichotomy of punk rage and alienation," the song’s producer, Butch Vig, told Rolling Stone, "but also this vulnerable pop sensibility. In 'Teen Spirit,' a lot of that vulnerability is in the tone of his voice." Sadly, by the time of Nirvana's last U.S. tour, in late '93, Cobain was tortured by the obligation to play "Teen Spirit" every night. "There are many other songs that I have written that are as good, if not better," he claimed.

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