“American Idiot,” the Tony Award-winning musical and rock opera based on the smash hit album by punk-rock band Green Day, is getting ready to blow the doors off the Merriam Theater with its Philadelphia debut Feb. 12-17.
Like the album that inspired it, “American Idiot” is the story of three boyhood friends, each searching for meaning in a post-9/11 world.
Out cast member Jared Young said he was a huge fan of the album when it came out.
“When I was in college I had a job at Hollister and you can pick the CDs that come on and ‘American Idiot’ had just come out,” he said. “I worked the morning shift and everybody hated me because I always played ‘American Idiot.’ I loved it. It was great.”
Young said even though we’re now into the second term of the Obama presidency, people both here and abroad still relate to the sentiments of the George W. Bush era that spawned “American Idiot.”
“We just got back into the States — we’d been in the U.K. for three months — but now that we’re back in the U.S., the reception is so much more powerful,” he said. “The audience is alive. It’s so much more relevant here. It was written for Americans and it’s fun to be back here. The message, even though it’s post-9/11, is so relevant because of everything that is going on — whether it’s gun control or the election that just happened. The music is still relevant for our times in 2013.”
Young added that LGBT audiences can also find concepts relevant to them in the music of “American Idiot.”
“On ‘Holiday’ and the way it’s presented on stage, that’s the number that was all about Human Rights Campaign,” he said. “We’re on this bus and we’re spreading this message to America to wake up. In the show it’s an anti-Bush number, but to me the directors said we had to find our own motivation behind what we’re singing about in ‘Holiday.’ I felt like I was on the HRC bus. I’m from Utah and I remember when the HRC came to Utah and everybody that spoke there had this passion that was opening people’s eyes. That’s what spoke to me in the ‘Holiday’ number. It’s my favorite in the show to perform.”
Given that Green Day is an internationally famous rock band, the show attracts a large number of the group’s fans.
But, Young said, the show is also drawing audiences who know little or nothing about Green Day.
“I read a review that said that this is the ‘Rent’ of our generation,” he said. “A lot of the audience members that I’ve gotten to speak to have never heard of Green Day and are just there to see this groundbreaking rock musical. When the show opened on Broadway, it was ahead of its time and pioneered all these rock musicals that are coming out.”
Young added that fans of Green Day shouldn’t worry about the raw energy of the punk-rock icons getting watered down into a Broadway musical.
“When I saw the show, I didn’t know what to expect and by the end the crowd was on their feet,” he said. “It really did feel like a rock concert to me. It still has a lot of energy that is different than the normal Broadway musical. It has its own musical energy.”
The Kimmel Center presents “American Idiot” Feb. 12-17 at Merriam Theater, 250 S. Broad St. For more information or tickets, call 215-790-5800.
