Broadway Gets a New Sound

There are almost innumerable genres of music and several genres of shows within theatre. But until very recently the music used in theatre was almost exclusively for theatre- thus the term 'show tunes'. That is, until rock-n-roll invaded. Sure, there have been what was known as 'rock operas' produced in theatre (and several of these are classic). What I'm talking about here is the use of music that also doubles as current chart topping stuff in its own right.

Last week, American Idiot opened at the St. James Theatre. This is a production which follows the storyline that Green Day wrote around for their album of the same name and uses songs from it and their latest offering, 21st Century Breakdown. It is a 95-minute production that has nearly 30 musical sequences- all the hit work of Green Day. It received excellent reviews during previews and its off-Broadway stint in 2009- a win for punk rock on the theatre stage. Two of the songs from it were performed by the cast with Green Day at the Grammy Awards recently to a standing ovation.

Lest we should think that American Idiot is a freak phenomenon, perhaps we should consider other productions that are currently on offer on Broadway or soon will be. There is Fela!, a celebration of African funk. It is based on the true story of Nigerian musician Fela Kuti. It has received 11 Tony nominations. Million Dollar Quartet was inspired by the recording session that brought together rock-n-roll icons Elvis Presley, Johnny Cash, Jerry Lee Lewis and Carl Perkins for the only time on December 4, 1956. Memphis features a brand-new score with music by Bon Jovi founding member David Bryan and is also inspired by a true story about the white radio DJ named Huey Calhoun and a black singer named Felicia Farrell in the 1950s. All four of these are "Best Musical" nominees this year.

"Rolling Stone" magazine said: "Rock-n-roll is becoming as common onstage as Rodgers and Hammerstein."

Similar shows slated to open this Fall include Unchain My Heart (a Ray Charles show), Hedwig and the Angry Inch (glam-rock anyone?), as well as a stage version of the Flaming Lips' Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots and an adaptation of Pink Floyd's The Wall. The director of American Idiot has said: "More people who go to theatre grew up listening to rock than those who didn't." An interesting change of zeitgeist, don't you agree?

Perhaps the most eagerly awaited of these rock-n-roll take-overs of the theatre is the fraught production of Spiderman: Turn Off the Dark which missed its slated February opening because of financial issues and is now set to open in the Fall. It is certainly the most ambitious of them yet. Considering that part of U2 are involved (Bono and the Edge wrote and composed all original songs for the production), grandiose is a given. See if your head can take this in: it has been reported that the budget has topped somewhere around $50 million. This makes it Broadway's most expensive offering in its history. To break even, the show would have to sell out every showing at approximately $1.5 million a week for three to five months. The only other production to ever achieve such numbers was Wicked. But U2 manager Paul McGuinness knows that U2 are used to big risks and he doesn't appear to be worried. He says that Bono and the Edge believe that "it's as good as it can possibly be."

At any rate, it seems that rock-n-roll definitely has carved out a place for itself in the most unlikely venue- Broadway theatre- and it's not going to go away from there anytime soon.

Resources:

http://www.felaonbroadway.com/about.php

http://www.milliondollarquartetlive.com/about.html

http://www.memphisthemusical.com/about.html

David Fricke, "Green Day Musical Debuts on Broadway", Issue 1104, May 13, 2010, the Rolling Stone magazine

David Rooney, "'Fela!', 'American Idiot', 'Spiderman' Lead Wave of Rock Musicals", Issue 1105, May 27, 2010, the Rolling Stone magazine