ModernMath

Is the theater for punk rock? We're about to find out. After months of work, California's Berkeley Repertory Theater is set to debut a stage musical based on Green Day 's politically charged blockbuster album, American Idiot . The show, created by the band and Tony Award-winning director Michael Mayer, will run from Sept. 4 through Oct. 11.

No one is more surprised by the notion of a punk rock album being turned into a play than Green Day's own frontman Billie Joe Armstrong . "It doesn't make a lot of sense," he told the New York Times . "But that's what I love about it. When people see it, it's going to be my wildest dream."

Details on the plot are still scarce — and Billie Joe admits that the album is "not the most linear story in the world." But it does contain some memorable characters, like Jesus of Suburbia and Whatshername, so it's a good bet that the musical storyline will incorporate them somehow.

The production of an American Idiot musical isn't even close to the oddest rock/theater collaboration in recent memory. Before Twilight took over pop culture, Elton John wrote a bunch of music for a Broadway adaption of Anne Rice's Vampire Chronicles. Now, U2's Bono and the Edge are writing music for a musical adaptation of the Spider-Man comic book called Spiderman: Turn Off The Dark . Julie Taymor, who directed the Beatles-inspired film musical Across the Universe , is directing the Spidey production.

Green Day, of course, has long idolized the theatrics of idols like The Who, whose concept album Tommy was turned into a Broadway production. But Billie Joe seems a tad uncomfortable when asked whether his band is now surpassing the Clash, another big Green Day inspiration. He says: "I guess maybe we're a bit more fruity than the Clash."

Maybe the real question is: is punk rock ready for the theater?