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It’s official: Billie Joe Armstrong has been bitten by the theater bug.
Taking on his first stage project since the American Idiot musical adaptation that played Broadway in 2010, the Green Day lead singer and guitarist will write songs for a rocking new adaptation of the Shakespeare comedy Much Ado About Nothing.
Titled These Paper Bullets, the show is being adapted by Rolin Jones. A playwright whose 2004 work The Intelligent Design of Jenny Chow was nominated for the Pulitzer Prize, Jones has been mainly toiling as a television writer and producer since then, working on Weeds, Friday Night Lights and Boardwalk Empire, among other series.
STORY: Billie Joe Armstrong on Rehab and His ‘Gruesome’ Withdrawal Period
The backbeat update follows a fab four from Liverpool called the Quartos, looking to find true love and cut an album in just seven nights in London. Directed by Jackson Gay, the show will run March 14 through April 5, 2014, at Yale Repertory Theatre in New Haven, Conn., with an official opening night set for March 20.
Given Jones’ affiliation with the Atlantic Theatre Company in New York, it’s safe to assume that a transfer run of the production is a strong possibility.
A documentary about the development of the American Idiot musical and Armstrong’s passionate hands-on involvement, Broadway Idiot, will premiere Friday at the South by Southwest Festival. It will screen on a double bill with ¡Cuatro!, a behind-the-scenes look at Green Day during a year and a half on the road which recaps the writing and recording of their new album trilogy, ¡Uno!, ¡Dos!, ¡Tré!
The band is scheduled to make their SXSW debut the same night with a performance at ACL Live at the Moody Theatre.
The winner of two Tony Awards, American Idiot ran for a year on Broadway, with Armstrong stepping into the production for a much-acclaimed limited run in the role of drug-dealing dark angel St. Jimmy. The show has since been touring in North America and internationally.
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