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01-10 - ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY
Could Green Day's Billie Joe Armstrong be Broadway's next big star?From the moment he steps on the stage of Broadway’s St. James Theater (or, actually, appears on a balcony high, high above the stage), Green Day frontman Billie Joe Armstrong proves very much at home. Yes, it seems that punk and Broadway are compatible — at least they are in the rock opera American Idiot, which is getting a jolt of extra adrenaline and rock-star charisma with Armstrong playing 50 performances of the stage show, on select dates through Feb. 27.
I’ve been a fan of American Idiot since it premiered last spring, but it has struggled a bit at the box office. Armstrong’s limited run as the drug dealer St. Jimmy is likely to boost ticket sales, of course, but the show is worth seeing on its own terms. Certainly, fans expecting a faux Green Day concert are likely to be disappointed. (St. Jimmy has only a handful of numbers.)
The surprise for me is how seamlessly Armstrong blends into the youthful ensemble on stage — and how readily he commits to the part. He hits his marks, waves his hands as Steven Hoggett’s choreography demands, and enthusiastically acts out the role of an outré big-city drug dealer seducing and corrupting a suburban innocent (played by Spring Awakening vet John Gallagher Jr., whose own singing clearly reflects Armstrong’s influence). It is, in short, a real performance.
So, PopWatchers, who else is eager to see Billie Joe on stage in American Idiot? And who else thinks that he and his bandmates should consider writing an original stage musical of their own?
[Full article at Entertainment Weekly]
01-09 - NEW YORK TIMES
Welcome to a New Kind of Tension: Billie Joe Armstrong on His ‘American Idiot’ Role
Billie Joe Armstrong plays many roles in “American Idiot,” and that’s before he even takes the stage at the St. James Theater. Mr. Armstrong, the 38-year-old Green Day front man and guitarist and a co-writer of that Broadway musical adapted from his band’s hit album of the same title, rejoined the show on Jan. 1 to resume the role of St. Jimmy, the pugnacious, drug-pushing alter ego of the protagonist, Johnny (portrayed by John Gallagher Jr.). (Charles Isherwood’s review of Mr. Armstrong in “American Idiot” appears in Monday’s New York Times.)But in the final minutes before showtime on Friday night, Mr. Armstrong took on other parts — from a nervous neophyte gingerly reviewing his notes from Michael Mayer, the musical’s director and co-writer, to an extroverted jester prancing around the stage in a female co-star’s sequined dress.
In his dressing room — furnished with the record albums of vintage punk acts like the Avengers and Generation X, and dried-out bouquets suspended from the ceiling by their stems — Mr. Armstrong spoke with ArtsBeat about his experience as a performer in “American Idiot” and about what the future might hold when he leaves the show after Feb. 27. These are excerpts from that conversation.
Q. So what notes does Michael have for you tonight?
A.He told me I was flat. [laughs] That’s his job.
Q. Yikes. Sounds like someone’s going to wake up tomorrow with a broken guitar in his bed.
A. He goes over it every night. I’ve got a good rapport with him, so it’s cool. In this situation I have no choice. I’m a rookie. I even have a hat that someone gave me that says “rookie” on it. When you get older, it’s good to feel like you’re getting into uncharted territory.
Q. How did the idea come up for you to perform in the show the first time?
A. We were having drinks one night. I was with Michael and that was the first time he brought it up. I was like, yeah, sure. Then I was in Buffalo [with Green Day], we were getting ready to play a show, and Michael called. He goes, “I really need to talk to you.” And I go, “Can you wait? Because I’m getting in an elevator.” He goes, “No, it can’t wait – I’m on with Tom Hulce [an "American Idiot" producer], also.” Then they officially asked me. I was like, well, I can’t say no. Sounds like something that I have to do.
Q. Even when you were developing the show, you weren’t fantasizing about getting up on stage and joining in?
A. I was more a spectator than anything else. That was as far as it was going to go. I always liked how in the “Quadrophenia” movie, it was the Who’s music, and it was cast with different people. That was cool. When they first asked me, I was like, am I too old?
Q. To do the show at all, or to play St. Jimmy?
A. To play that character. But since he’s sort of an alter ego, he’s sort of ageless.
Q. He’s supposed to be the embodiment of what Johnny wishes he could be, so it should be O.K. if he’s a little more, shall we say, mature.
A. Or less mature.
Q. You were noticeably press-shy during your original run in the show, for the eight performances you played in the fall. Was that by design?
A. The previous run was kind of like a test drive. I didn’t want to announce it. I wanted it to be last-minute. I wanted to get into rehearsal and figure out, can I do this? Am I capable of it? I wanted to keep the pressure down as much as possible.
Q. Were you also concerned about how your coming into the show might be received by other cast members?
A. Yeah, I was worried. When me, Mike [Dirnt] and Tré [Cool] are on stage, it’s three hams going crazy. These people have been in plays and theater their whole lives. They’ve got tons of experience, and I’ve had none. That to me was really intimidating. I also didn’t want to come in and feel like it was some kind of vanity thing. There’s a funny story about George M. Cohan: at the St. James, he wrote, directed and starred in his own production – I think it was “The Merry Malones.” And it was written up as, “George M. Cohan, who arrogantly wrote, directed and starred in his own production.” So that was going through my mind. I was like, oh, God, I don’t want to be that guy.
Q. I never thought I’d someday have a conversation with you about George M. Cohan.
A. You might want to fact-check that. I hope I got the right person. [Editor's note: Mr. Armstrong's only error was that "The Merry Malones" was performed at Erlanger's Theater, before it was renamed the St. James.]
Q. Did you have any previous experience with musical theater before you started performing in “American Idiot”?
A. I had a vocal teacher when I was really young, like 7, 8 years old, and that’s how I sang, through standards and show tunes. Stuff from “Oliver!” and “Annie Get Your Gun,” things like that. It taught me a sense of melody. I was also really into AC/DC.
Q. Was your teacher horrified that you grew up to become a punk-rock star?
A. She was a really cool lady. My mom keeps in touch with her, and she came to see “American Idiot” in Berkeley, which was really fun.
Q. So you can have one foot in the world of punk rock and other in the world of musical theater at the same time?
A. I’m old enough where I think you have to take everything you learn and put it in somehow. And you can’t escape your past. It comes in handy, no matter what.
Q. How did your band mates in Green Day feel about losing you to the show for a few weeks?
A. They were like: “Do it. We need to take a break. Get away from us for a while.” They’re totally into it.
Q. Did you do any special training in preparation for your current run?
A. No. I remember, I texted Theo [Stockman, an ensemble member], and all I wrote was, By the way, how do you act? And the response I got, was “Ha, ha, ha.” He goes: “Just be yourself. Just be honest.” The first rehearsal was really funny. Michael says to me, “O.K., I’m just going to tell you this right now, it’s something I forgot to tell you: This is going to be really awkward.” I was like, you couldn’t have told me that a month ago?
01-09 - NEW YORK TIMES
‘Idiot’ Welcomes Back a Bad Influence
Rock star impersonators are not exactly rare creatures on Broadway today. An imitation Elvis and Jerry Lee and friends are stirring up trouble in “Million Dollar Quartet” at the Nederlander Theater. Flesh facsimiles of Paul, John, George and Ringo are running through the Beatles’ greatest hits nightly in “Rain” at the Neil Simon.But if you’re looking for the actual article, there is only St. Jimmy at the St. James. Billie Joe Armstrong, the Green Day frontman with the antic aspect of a rabid raccoon, has rejoined the cast of “American Idiot” for a few weeks, bringing a jolt of authentic rock-god electricity to a musical that was plenty electrified — and electrifying — to start with.
The most notable, and commendable, aspect of Mr. Armstrong’s performance as the drug pusher St. Jimmy is how notable it is not, in a fundamental sense. Although ripples of excitement spread through the audience in the moments before his entrance, and the raucous cheers of fans rise when he comes slamming onto the stage, Mr. Armstrong is not merely strutting around spreading stardust. (His arrival will no doubt goose the box office considerably, as it did when he first joined the show for several performances in the fall.)
Certainly he brings his own style and charisma to bear on the role, as any actor would. But at no point does Mr. Armstrong indulge in extraneous audience pandering or self-indulgent showboating. “American Idiot” is an ensemble show, an aching portrait of disaffected youth in search of itself. Mr. Armstrong, who wrote the songs (with Green Day) and wrote the book with the director, Michael Mayer, naturally has a stake in maintaining its integrity. He’s not here to undermine it with focus-pulling grandstanding, and he doesn’t. He plays the role, and plays it very well. (Mr. Armstrong is appearing in selected performances through Feb. 27.)
Which is not to say he fades into the background of course. On the concert stage Mr. Armstrong is a vivid, feral and animated presence, and when he’s at the center of the action in “American Idiot,” portraying the sinister vision who draws one of the show’s leading characters, Johnny (John Gallagher Jr.), into a maelstrom of drug addiction, he’s ablaze with energy, a whirling tornado of temptation.
The popping eyes, rimmed in enough eyeliner to keep the girls of “Jersey Shore” in business for a long weekend, and the jet-black, finger-in-light-socket hairdo are emblems of pop-punk rebellion that a kid from the sticks like Johnny would naturally bow down before, whether he’s under the influence or not. But if Tony Vincent, the actor who originated the role of St. Jimmy, personified the sexual seduction of seeking ecstasy in a syringe, Mr. Armstrong more powerfully embodies the heady allure of risk as an end in itself and the dark threat of self-destruction.
He has a wicked, twisted smile suggesting there will always be more exotic pleasures to be discovered as long as the sun hasn’t come up yet. And it almost goes without saying that Mr. Armstrong sings with a surging, gut-driven power that brings out the snarling anger in the music with a fierce intensity.
As portrayed with a keen sense of uneasiness in his own skin by Mr. Gallagher, Johnny is a rebel who doesn’t quite have the courage of his angry convictions — a soul more naturally inclined to love than rage. But he cannot resist the pull of anarchy when it calls to him in the form of Mr. Armstrong’s St. Jimmy, the bad influence essentially good boys are always drawn to.
The soul battle between Johnny and his nihilistic doppelgänger St. Jimmy is hardly the whole of “American Idiot.” The musical also traces the paths of Johnny’s friends Tunny (Stark Sands), who moves to the big city with Johnny and joins the Army, and Will (Michael Esper), who is forced to stay back home when his girlfriend (Jeanna de Waal) becomes pregnant. All the performances in the central roles, which includes Rebecca Naomi Jones as the girl Johnny loves and loses, remain heartfelt and fresh. (Ms. de Waal is the only newcomer to the cast.)
Performing a show with the highly charged metabolism of “American Idiot” eight times a week could, I suppose, either rev you up nightly or leave you spent; on the evidence of this, my third visit to the show, it seems pretty clear the whole cast remains attuned to its surging energy, and continues to find inspiration in it. I was struck anew by the terrific work of the show’s young ensemble, particularly in transmitting the visceral charge of the choreography by Steven Hoggett, full of the exultation, abandon and frustration of being young.
Although it deals in simple archetypes of alienated youth, “American Idiot” is fashioned with such a keen sense of emotional truth — almost all of it communicated in song — that the characters and their struggles to make their way in the world feel vital and acutely specific, the pain of real people seen with vivid intimacy. It remains, for me, the most exciting and moving new musical on Broadway, a potent fable about growing up in a distracted and disappointed America, and how finding yourself can often involve losing yourself, at least for a little while, through the time-honored time killers of youth: sex, drugs and rock ’n’ roll.
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