Michael Mayer, who won a Tony Award for directing Spring Awakening, wants to bring popular music – like Green Day – into the world of musical theater.
He fell in love with American Idiot while driving back and forth to the set of a movie he was directing (Flicka.)
With the album playing in his car, he started to imagine a rich community of characters that could live inside of the story that Billie Joe tells in the original album.