Green Day gets all "Mamma Mia!" at BRT

American Idiots: Green Day

If the soon-to-be-inescapable buzz around Green Day's upcoming album, 21st Century Breakdown wasn't loud enough, the East Bay boys jaded punx love to hate (and the music industry bows down to as one of its few remaining commercially-viable acts) have added yet more cultural cache to their already- (leather) studded resume.

As the Chron's Bob Hurwitt--one of the last honest entertainment writers still employed by the MSM--announced  yesterday, Berkeley Repertory Theatre will be producing a play based around G'Day's American Idiot which will contain musical selections both from that album and from the new Green Day opus (sorry, Dookie and Kerplunk! fans). The play will debut in September, and will run through October. The story of  disillusioned American youth who travel to the Middle East in the aftermath of the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks sounds promising; we're betting it will be less cornier than "Mamma Mia" and less-symphonic than the Who's "Tommy."

But if this news conjures visions of hot thesbian scenes featuring a guylinered-up Billie Joe Armstrong, hate to have to break it to you, but Green Day will not be appearing on stage in the play - others will be performing their music. Still, this is good news for fans of the Rock Opera, a somewhat underutilized concept in this day and age.