Unauthorized Van Halen Play Headed to Off-Broadway – With a Twist
An unauthorized dramatization of the lives of David Lee Roth and Eddie Van Halen will be staged off-Broadway in New York City next year. Eddie and Dave will open at the Atlantic Theater Company – which launched the Tony Award–winning The Band’s Visit – on January 10th and run through February 10th. The production carefully avoids using the Van Halen name, likely to avoid a lawsuit as Ultimate Classic Rock reports, but it hints at the band: the key art presents the musicians’ hair as it looked in the early Eighties.
The production also comes with a twist, so perhaps a “fair warning” is in order. Amy Staats, who wrote the play, will star as “Eddie” and actress Megan Hill will play “Dave.” The theater describes the play as a “raucous retelling of the rise and fall of Pasadena’s most groundbreaking Eighties rockers told through the foggy lens of a lonely, out of work MTV-VJ.” Vanessa Asilla plays the VJ. It will touch on “hubris, friendship, family, fame, musical genius and what happens when the person you need is the one you find most irritating.”
Tix are now on sale for EDDIE AND DAVE! Plus check out our totally rad cast: @VAspillaga, Megan Hill, Omer Abbas Salem, @AmyStaats & Adina Verson! https://t.co/C4K2onUBRP Performances start Jan 10! #EddieAndDaveATC pic.twitter.com/WhoAeRkwnQ
— Atlantic Theater (@AtlanticTheater) November 1, 2018
The production, which Margot Bordelon is directing, also features characters named Val (actor Omer Salem, perhaps playing Eddie’s then-wife Valerie Bertinelli) and Al (actress Adina Verson, possibly playing Alex Van Halen). Staats is a resident playwright for the theater.
As for the real Van Halen, things have been quiet in recent years; the group’s most recent gig was in 2015. The only news this year, which marks the 40th anniversary of the group’s debut LP, was that Eddie had made three signature guitars that sound “as close as humanly possible” to the ones he used in 1978.