11 Broadway and theater productions with ties to rock music (and Eminem)
Whether it’s a Broadway production or a local theater show, lots of plays have included references to scene music. Some have even included performances by musicians.
Here are 11 theatrical productions that are connected to the scene in some way.
Read more: 10 musicians who should head to Broadway
1. Kinky Boots
Currently starring Panic! At The Disco frontman Brendon Urie, Kinky Boots has seen a spike in interest since adding the star to its cast. Urie plays Charlie Price, a man who is struggling to gain success in the shoemaking industry until he designs a boot specifically for drag queens.
Read more: Panic! At The Disco’s Brendon Urie talks Broadway with ‘Kinky Boots’ co-star
2. American Idiot
The musical features music written by Green Day, and starred singer Billie Joe Armstrong as St. Jimmy for many of its Broadway performances. AFI’s Davey Havok also filled in for the role for select shows. The play follows three friends’ stories as two of them run away from their suburban hometowns and one works on a relationship with his pregnant girlfriend.
3. Bloody Bloody Andrew Jackson
This musical retelling of American history reimagines past president Andrew Jackson as an emo rock star. The score is influenced by emo and rock music.
4. SpongeBob SquarePants
Panic! At The Disco wrote a song for the musical titled “Just A Simple Sponge.” The musical is an imaginative story within the SpongeBob SquarePants universe, where all the show’s characters must fight to save Bikini Bottom from an erupting volcano.
5. Hedwig And The Angry Inch
This play references Metallica in a meta-play embedded into the plot. The story follows the life of Hedwig, a transgender lead singer in a rock band, and her love life with other musicians. Within Hedwig And The Angry Inch is a fictional production called Hurt Locker: The Musical, complete with fake Playbills that credit Metallica with writing the score.
6. Spider-Man: Turn Off The Dark
U2’s Bono and the Edge both wrote the lyrics and music for the ultimate Broadway flop Spider-Man: Turn Off The Dark. Actor injuries and other issues led to the play not making back its initial investment money. The plot was similar to the 2002 film Spider-Man (starring Tobey Maguire), since it follows the spider bite which gives the hero his powers. In the musical, Spider-Man fights the Green Goblin and pines after his love interest, Mary Jane.
7. The Rocky Horror Picture Show
Joan Jett performed as Columbia in cult classic The Rocky Horror Picture Show for part of its Broadway run starting in 2000. In the play, Brad and Janet (an engaged couple) are visiting an old professor and their car breaks down. They go to a nearby home for help, where they encounter a cross-dressing mad scientist and his Frankenstein-like (but beautiful) creation, Rocky.
The musical was revived for a TV special that included singers Adam Lambert, Christina Milian and Ivy Levan in its cast.
8. Hamilton
Hamilton is a unique retelling of the life of Alexander Hamilton and other founding fathers. The play debuted in early 2015 and is still touring across the country.
The Broadway success was inspired by Eminem’s style of rapping, said writer Lin-Manuel Miranda.
9. Home Street Home
This play was created by NOFX’s Fat Mike. The dark comedy follows teenage runaway Sue as she gets involved with a group of street punks. According to the play’s website, Home Street Home is an “exploration of sex work, drug use, pain and BDSM power exchange.”
10. Fight Club
Though it hasn’t been created, it’s been indefinitely in the works. (Though, the last mention of it was in 2015.) Fight Club would be reimagined as a rock opera, and apparently Nine Inch Nails frontman Trent Reznor could be helping out on it.
11. Black Parade: The Musical
[Photo by: Black Parade: The Musical/Facebook]
Black Parade: The Musical is an independent project written by longtime MCR fan Alexandra Conroy that would be based off of My Chemical Romance’s music. The project is currently on pause; the last update given by the crew in August 2016 was that they would return to the play soon. The plot is described through the play’s Facebook page as a story about Helena, who is living in Nazi-occupied Poland in 1940. “There’s just one problem — she falls in love with Ari, a Jew from the Warsaw ghetto.”
