You've seen the billboards: Green Day's "American Idiot" is playing at the Orpheum next week. Wait, what? An "American Idiot" musical? Isn't that a punk rock album? Is the musical actually any good? Does Green Day even know about this? Read on for the answers to all these questions, and more. Ø

Green Day made its name in the 1990s as punk classicists, precipitating a punk revival with indelible singles like "Longview" and "Basket Case." By the next decade, though, frontman Billie Joe Armstrong and the band were thinking bigger.

Critics had noted the band's increasing lyrical and musical ambition on "Nimrod" (1997) and "Warning" (2000). In the 2003 sessions for an album initially known as "Cigarettes and Valentines," the band wove together multi-part suites that ultimately cohered into a full-fledged concept album tracking the picaresque journey of a "Jesus of Suburbia."

The resulting album, "American Idiot" (2004), became a huge comeback for Green Day after the commercial and critical slump of "Warning." The album went to No. 1 in the United States and 18 other countries, spawned hit singles (including the title track, "Boulevard of Broken Dreams," "Holiday" and "Wake Me Up When September Ends") and won a Grammy for best rock album.

"'American Idiot' really spoke to me," remembers Broadway composer Tom Kitt. "I hadn't heard an album like that in a long time, with thematic qualities from start to finish. It felt like a very important album."

Those themes -- restlessness, alienation, a search for meaning -- had been the stuff of rock concept albums since the Who's seminal "Tommy" (1969), but they were newly resonant in post-9/11 America. To many listeners, the album was begging to be taken to the next stage.

Director Michael Mayer, who scored a huge Broadway hit with the 2006 rock musical "Spring Awakening," initially thought "American Idiot" was such an obvious candidate for a stage adaptation that one had to be in the works already. When he discovered that such was not the case, he approached Green Day and found them receptive to the idea. Kitt was brought on board to adapt the album -- which is sung entirely by Armstrong -- into a full-fledged musical with a cast of 19 singers.

Kitt had rearranged the opening of that song for piano and strings, to create a sense of reverie and to allow for dramatic build. "That was one of the things the band pointed to [approvingly], and that gave me a lot of confidence moving forward. I felt like I was on to something."

In the "American Idiot" musical, several characters flee the repressive suburbs for the big city, but find that the move doesn't solve their problems. The story ends on a bittersweet note, with a group performance of Green Day's "Good Riddance (Time of Your Life)," a song borrowed from "Nimrod."

The idea of a punk-rock musical may seem odd, but there are plenty of precedents. In addition to Mayer's "Spring Awakening," "Hair" (1967), "Tommy" (adapted in 1992) and "Rent" (1996) brought the sounds of rock rebellion to Broadway. "In the Heights," winner of several 2008 Tony Awards, was a breakthrough for hip-hop on Broadway. "Every show is unique," says Kitt, "but 'American Idiot' belongs squarely in the line of exciting rock musicals."

The new musical opened at the Berkeley Repertory Theatre in 2009, then moved to Broadway in March 2010, with Armstrong occasionally performing in the cast. Critics raved, but attendance sagged when Armstrong wasn't in the show, and the production closed 13 months later.

Plans to take the show on tour were in place even before the Broadway run ended. "We had to scale down a little bit," says Kitt. "Christine Jones created a touring version of the set that's just as brilliant as the Broadway version." Except for a few minor changes, including reducing the cast from 19 to 17, Kitt says the touring version is the same as the Broadway show.

Hughes says the experience of being on tour has invigorated the cast. "We come to your town for the week and say, 'Hey, we're here for you' -- as opposed to being on Broadway, when we were waiting for people to come to us. It adds energy to the show, an aggression -- like we're invading your hometown."

Minnesotans are very familiar with Green Day -- the band has played here often, partly because Armstrong's wife, Adrienne, is a Minnesota native whom he met on the band's first tour, in 1990. Tom Hoch, president of the Hennepin Theatre Trust (which owns the Orpheum Theatre), expects a younger crowd for "Idiot" than for the average touring show, and says the show is representative of the increasingly diverse offerings on Broadway.

"In Broadway theater," says Hoch, "things are changing, but slowly. You still have shows that play to a largely white, upper-middle-class audience, but shows like 'Fela!' and 'Spring Awakening' reach to a different demographic." To sweeten the deal, the Trust is offering student rush tickets for "American Idiot."

Though the album was a product of the frightening, confusing years immediately after 9/11, Kitt says the impact of the show hasn't diminished. "There are a lot of people in this country who are hurting, who are feeling frustrated, who are trying to make ends meet -- so a musical that's talking about those issues is still resonant."

Green Day frontman Billie Joe Armstrong publicly gushes about the Replacements any chance he gets. So what better precursor to "American Idiot" than a punk rock history lesson from Stephen T. McClellan, the general manager at First Avenue for 32 years? Don't expect McClellan, who's now a professor at McNally Smith College of Music, to gloss over the chapter where 1980s torchbearers like the 'Mats blazed a trail for Green Day's mainstream domination. --Jay Boller