TOM KITT MAKES 'IDIOT' ROCK IN STORYTELLER ROLE

When director Michael Mayer had that first inspiration to turn Green Day's seminal rock opera album "American Idiot" into a Broadway musical, of course he had to get permission from the Berkeley-born band. Once Billie Joe Armstrong, Mike Dirnt and Tre Cool gave Mayer the green light to create the show, Mayer's first call was to Tom Kitt, a collaborator on the Mayer-directed project that would become "Everyday Rapture."

"This guy is a genius," Mayer says on the phone while walking through Times Square. "Not only is Tom a songwriter himself, but he's also able to inhabit other people's material in a visceral, poetic way."

Kitt said yes immediately because he considers himself a huge Green Day fan.

"My love of Green Day is on so many levels," Kitt says on the phone from New York. "It's their genius for songwriting, the fact that they write about very important subjects, both personal and political, and they're just a timeless band. I feel like I grew up with them. They were such a sound track to my life, and then when I actually started working on the music, I found so many layers and just got more and more inspired."

It's not like Kitt needed the extra work. He's an award-winning composer himself and won a Pulitzer Prize for the score he and Brian Yorkey wrote for "Next to Normal" about bipolar disorder and electroshock therapy.

Director Mayer could have asked for a verbatim translation of "American Idiot," the 2004 album that has sold an estimated 14 million copies, and that would have pleased fans of the record. Kitt could have done that, but Mayer wanted something more.

"Tom understood how to completely, deeply, truly honor the beauty and richness of Green Day's songs," he says. "And yet he was still able to deliver a remarkably wide-ranging canvas of musical material that absolutely came from him and his genius. I feel like his contribution, musically, has placed an indelible imprint on the way I hear these songs. His work is inseparable from the songs at this point because the marriage was so flawlessly rendered."

One of Kitt's first inspirations was with the song "Whatsername." Kitt wanted to mix things up and open the number with just piano and strings before it revved up to punk levels. At an early workshop performance for the Green Day trio in the summer of 2008, Kitt remembers being a little nervous about their reaction.

"They pointed to 'Whatsername' as something they really loved, and that meant a lot to me," Kitt says. "I knew from then on I could follow my creative instincts."

When "American Idiot" had its world premiere at Berkeley Repertory Theatre in the fall of 2009 before moving to Broadway seven months later, Kitt's work on the score made it immediately accessible to both fans of the band and to musical theater aficionados who didn't know their Green Day from their Black Flag.

Now that "American Idiot" is coming back to the Bay Area as part of the SHN season at the Orpheum Theatre, Bay Area enthusiasts can check out the changes made in the show between Berkeley and Broadway. One of the major alterations, which was instituted later in the Berkeley run then refined in New York, was the addition of a new song, "Last of the American Girls" from the 2009 album "21st Century Breakdown," as a mashup with "She's a Rebel."

"I told Billie my idea to go with an 'Eleanor Rigby' take on the top of the song, and he was into it," Kitt says. "I have to say this process was so natural. There was back and forth with Michael and the band, but every idea came from such an emotional place. I went where the material led me. I can't say enough about how open the band were. It was a beautiful collaboration."

Much of rock music, especially when played at arena decibels, is about feeling because you can't really understand the words. Theater, on the other hand, is all about story, characters and words. Kitt knew the audience had to be able to follow the lyrics and yet he wanted to unleash as much of that rock feeling as possible.

"I was hoping the show would sound like this hybrid with authentic punk rock arena sound and still tell a powerful story," Kitt says. "One of the arrangements I'm really proud of is '21 Guns' because the chorus has this descending bass line with a suspended type of progression that immediately screamed Bach to me. That's why it felt so natural to take that first chorus, which is supposed to be charged, and make it quietly intense by putting it on the strings. It still feels like Green Day but with a different color than people are used to."

Green Day liked Kitt's work on "American Idiot" so much they invited him to work on some arrangements for "21st Century Breakdown," and there will be another collaboration on the band's upcoming album (or, as Kitt says, "three albums at once").

"I hope Green Day write more for the theater," Kitt says. "They're brilliant at it."

American Idiot: By Green Day and Michael Mayer. Directed by Michael Mayer. Orpheum Theatre, 1192 Market St., S.F. $31-$100. (888) 746-1799. www.shnsf.com

Full article at SF Gate: HERE