Now that the Tony rulings are done, I had heard that 'American Idiot' might not submit their score, for fear that it would backfire. I never understood how they would've had a leg to stand on. The award is called: 'Best Original Score Written for the Theatre.' One, in recent years, the Tonys have used a rule of thumb where 50% of the score needed to be new.
Two, 'Written for the Theatre' implies some sort of intent. 'American Idiot' might've started out as a concept album, but there's no evidence that it was ever meant to be staged. As it's been pointed out to me, at least 'Tommy' came out with a libretto with defined characters, while there's nothing in the liner notes to the 'AI' album that hints at any theatrical intent. Billie Joe Armstrong also gave an interview with Entertainment Weekly where he said that he never knew he was writing a musical at the time Green Day was working on it, and that he never expected it to be actually staged. The only reason it's onstage is because Michael Mayer came up with the idea 2 years ago. Anything they've been saying lately about how they always wanted to stage it, has been rewriting history.
Updated On: 4/30/10 at 01:27 PM
