theater

From punk rock mosh pits and sold-out stadiums to the Great White Way, this electrifying documentary follows Green Day's Billie Joe Armstrong as he works with Broadway producers to turn his mega-hit album, "American Idiot," into a staged Broadway musical. The film goes behind the scenes to reveal the creative choices and challenges made by Grammy® winner Billie Joe and Tony® winning director Michael Mayer (Spring Awakening) to create the thrilling and one-of-a-kind musical experience. More than just a making-of profile, Broadway Idiot is a portrait of a world-famous artist having the guts to try something totally new. The film grants insider access to the actors' rehearsals, the creative team's process and live performances that reveal Billie's transformation from rock star to Broadway star. Broadway Idiot provides a unique window into the art of theater as rock stars and stage stars collide and create something never seen before. While the film features plenty of footage of propulsive public performances (including a thrilling collaboration between the cast and Green Day at the 2010 Grammy Awards that immediately predated the show’s Broadway debut), its trump card is its access to rough rehearsal-room experiments like the rearrangement of the band’s song “Last Night on Earth” into a hushed, Phil Spector-style soul number. Though the film paints an unreservedly rosy picture of the show’s development — if any creative disagreements surfaced along the way, they’ve been left in the editing suite — it’s still rare to see the nuts and bolts behind any stage musical, much less one this unorthodox, exposed quite so generously. The actual storyline of the musical is only revealed to viewers at the halfway mark; an earlier explanation might have added resonance to some of the film’s initial musical performances. "Broadway Idiot" provides a backstage view of every step of the process -- from the audition to decide if it even has a chance at being a show, to the tryout in Green Day's Berkeley hometown, to Broadway, to Armstrong ultimately joining the cast. Hamilton's direction and Rob Tinworth's editing heighten the intensity at every turn -- it's not until Armstrong sits in the audience with his musical directors to dissect the construction of the songs that the tension is released.

"Broadway Idiot" gives Armstrong a major role, but keeps its focus on the people involved with creating the Broadway show. Stepping back from Armstrong's debut, which will be seen in detail much later, director Doug Hamilton introduces the main characters of his film. He starts with Michael Mayer, the director of the "American Idiot" musical. Mayer adapts "American Idiot" after winning the Tony for "Spring Awakening," a freaky-as-hell musical adaptation of a sexually explicit, controversial 1891 German play. Mayer teams with Tom Kitt, who arranges songs from both "American Idiot" and Green Day's follow-up album "21st Century Breakdown." Both speak in detail about the process throughout "Broadway Idiot," with Mayer focusing on performances and the book (which he cowrote with Armstrong) and Kitt explaining the reasons for his arrangement choices.

I love this kind of backstage documentary, which is not surprising for someone who has "All That Jazz" and "All About Eve" on his all-time top ten list. This example is very well done. "Broadway Idiot" overflows with information about the show which, full disclosure, I saw and enjoyed when it opened in 2010. Your mileage may vary, however. I'd subtract half a star if you're not a Green Day fan, and add a half star if you're a diehard fan of musicals, Green Day or both.