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American Stage readying its high-energy ‘Idiot’

Bill DeYoung

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Johnny, Will and Tunny (on scaffolding) and the ensemble. Rehearsal photos (Sept. 1) by Bill DeYoung.

Watching a rehearsal of American Idiot from the House Right seats, American Stage director Gavin Hawk mused on the narrative spine of the Tony-winning Broadway musical, adapted from the 2004 album of the same title by the punk rock trio Green Day.

“A lot of what we do is treating each song like a music video,” Hawk explained as the youthful cast ran, leaped and kicked in unison, like a herd of loose-limbed antelope. “So it’s telling the story more visually.”

Opening Sept. 7, American Idiot will be the first new production of American Stage’s 2022-23 season.

The sung-through stage show follows the trajectory of the Green Day album almost exactly, song for song, with a few other of the band’s numbers stitched in.

But there isn’t a storyline, per se, according to Hawk. “There are letters read in between scenes that help link things together,” he said, “but some of the lyrics don’t line up exactly with what’s happening onstage. It’s more about the feeling or the mood. And the music is a support, emotionally.”

Emotions are close to the surface. It’s post-9/11 and best buds Johnny, Will and Tunny are disaffected, bored, frustrated and slightly scared of the future.

That’s essentially it. It’s the age-old quandary of the early adult years: Where am I going? What am I doing with my life? Will I become my parents? And getting pulled in different directions.

Ah, but these three guys have music. And, perhaps even better, they have a tight group of like-minded friends.

“The message,” offered Hawk, “is that friends are the family you choose. And the way to happiness, the way to fulfillment, is to find your people and stick with them. Even if the world is handing you shit, you can turn it into something beautiful and cool.

“Because that’s really the sort of punk rock ethos – do I know how to play guitar super well? No, but I know some chords, and I can put those chords together and make an awesome song out of that. I don’t have to play like Jimmy Page, you know? I can play like the Ramones.”

The stage renditions of the American Idiot songs are spirited and tuneful, arranged with rich and playful harmonies. Every member of the high-energy cast sings and dances.

There are elements of Hair and Rent in the show’s communal, “tribal” nature.

“I think that Green Day did follow in the steps of the Ramones and have irreverent, silly lyrics – but they also have a lot of really catchy, hooky melodies,” Hawk said. “It’s unbelievable, the melodies of this show. Even Juan (Rodriguez), our musical director was like ‘I’m not a punk rock fan, but these songs are really, really good. They’re Beatle-esque.’”

The American Stage production, he adds, is a “spectacle,” with confetti guns, a blowing bubble machine, hazers and other effects. Plus a live band. “It’s about fury and sound and spectacle.”

Gavin Hawk

There’s a bit of paying-it-forward here for the director, who grew up in the punk rock subculture of 1990s Southern California.

He was 14 years old when his mother was severely injured in a car accident. She underwent a year of touch-and-go surgeries.

“I was depressed, I stopped eating,” Hawk explained. “I slept all day, I stopped going to school. I didn’t care about anything.

“And then some friends that I knew from theater class, some seniors, they just showed up at my house and said ‘Hey man, get up, get dressed, we’re taking you to a show.’”

It was a Social Distortion performance at a local community college. From the first guitar chord, the music transported him.

“I jump into the mosh pit, I’m moshing and I fall down, I wipe out … and then there’s like five sets of hands lifting me up, pulling me up, patting me on the back and saying ‘Keep going, buddy! Keep going, man!’

“And that was the metaphor for my life right then.”

American Stage’s cast includes Nathan David Smith (Will), Zummy Mohammed (Tunny), John Alejandro Jeffords (St. Jimmy), Johnny Shea (Johnny), Ari Glauser (Extraordinary Girl), Mia Massero (Heather) and Analise Rios (Whatshername).

Find tickets and additional information here.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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