BWW Interviews: Stark Sands, An AMERICAN IDIOT

Green Day's American Idiot is undoubtedly one of the season's most ambitious projects.  The concept: take one of the most successful rock albums of this generation and turn it into a Broadway musical - without adding a stitch (or nearly) of dialogue. The experiment, so far, has been a success, managing to win over theater minds largely unfamiliar with the rock/grunge genre, as well as music fans who, prior to it's opening, had never stepped foot in a Broadway house.

One reason for the achievement of American Idiot: The Musical, no doubt, is its powerhouse cast, each among it a triple threat. BroadwayWorld recently caught up with one of the cast's leading players, Stark Sands ('Tunny'), to go inside the mind of an "American Idiot," and get the scoop on opening night and how this unconventional show came to be.

Stark Sands first earned recognition for his role as a recurring love interest to the angst-ridden teen played by Lauren Ambrose on the critically acclaimed HBO series "Six Feet Under." More recently he appeared on the small screen as Lt. Nathaniel Fick in the critically acclaimed, Emmy-nominated HBO mini-series, "Generation Kill." Sands was last seen on Broadway as 2nd Lieutenant Raleigh in the 2007 revival of Journey's End. The play received six Tony Award nominations, including one for Stark for Best Performance by a Featured Actor in a Play. Additionally, Sands received a Theatre World Award in recognition of his outstanding New York City stage debut performance. Also on stage, Sands starred in the 2009 musical adaptation of Bonnie & Clyde at the La Jolla Playhouse, in which he played the title role of 'Clyde.' In fall 2008 Sands earned critical acclaim for his portrayal of 'Ferdinand' in the Classic Stage Company production of The Tempest. For his performance he was awarded the Actors' Equity Foundation's St. Clair Bayfield Award, which honors the best performance by an actor in a Shakespearean play in the New York metropolitan area. In summer 2009 Sands co-starred in The Public Theater's Shakespeare in the Park production of Twelfth Night as Sebastian. 

Sands made his feature film debut in the independent comedy "Die, Mommie, Die," which premiered to rave reviews at the 2003 Sundance Film Festival. Additional film roles include director Clint Eastwood's "Flags of Our Fathers," Marcos Siega's "Pretty Persuasion," "Shall We Dance," "Chasing Liberty," and "11:14" with with Hilary Swank, among others. 

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First, off, tell me about opening night. I hear it was an amazing evening - different than a lot of opening night celebrations.

Oh God... it was. It was something else. We've never had an audience like that. We've never had to hold for applause like we did that night. Honestly what made the evening was seeing how happy Billie Joe was. You should've seen Billie Joe. He was just - it was really neat to see how emotional he is and how much he cares about it. And it was cool getting to hang out and have dinner and drinks with his entourage...you know. Ever since I came onto the show it's been madness. I came onto the project after the Berkeley run for Broadway, and to be thrown on board this thing and have the responsibility of picking it up where another actor left off, and bringing myself up to speed with people who are so immensely talented has been unlike any other experience. It's sort of like I went into a focused work cave and just came out of the cave on opening night. I feel like I can finally call all my friends and reconnect with them! But it was exhausting! You know, unlike other shows I've done, this show is usually so energizing. Usually after a show I go home, hit the shower, and have to chill out for a few hours, watch some TV, and have some dinner before I can finally fall asleep. But between that opening night performance and the party, I was  exhausted and completely crashed. What a night.

I would imagine that for a lot of people involved with the show, getting to this particular opening night successfully was even more special given the unique artistic process of having to develop a musical without a book. Can you talk a little bit about what that experience was like and how much of a demand was put on the cast to flesh out your own story lines?

Well, the album that inspired the musical had a singular story line about a guy who leaves his hometown in suburbia, goes to the city, meets a girl, gets involved with drugs, loses the girl and finds his way back home. A musical, of course, is much more fleshed out with six specific characters that all had to be created from the material that Green Day had originally written for that one story. I came on board for the Broadway cast so there had been a lot of work done on my character, Tunny, already. The production had had workshops and a run at Berkeley Rep last fall. So I stepped into a very fast-moving thing. Basically, Michael Mayer and I sat down a few times and talked through who Tunny was in the context of the show he had created - how he was different from the other two guys, where he came from etc. Michael allowed me to create a back story, so I had a huge part in determining the so-called "book" for him. The songs I sang were fixed, but we together pulled from the lyrics to create this story with details interwoven that weren't originally written to mean what we make them mean on stage.

As an actor, was that something that excited or terrified you?

Oh I loved it. As a result I am so anchored in this role. It has allowed me to put more of me into the role than if I were portraying an already-developed character on the page. I knew that Michael wanted him to be the angriest guy on stage, if not in the show, covered in tattoos. So I took that and ran with it, and started with the questions, "If I'm angry, where is it coming from? What am I angry about? Who am I angry at?" Candidly speaking, I am earnest. I am sort of the all-American "boy next door." It's who I am and so it's frequently the kind of role I get cast in. So in the process of answering these questions, I found myself back in that place. All of Tunny's anger, all the tattoos, it's all a mask for who he really is, which is the all-American guy you've seen me play on stage before. There has to be at least a little slice of me in every role that I play. I'm not really much of a character actor.

What do you like best about the Tunny you've created?

He stands for figuring out what he is and actually being that person. That's what his purpose is in the show we've created where he wasn't in the material before.

Were you familiar with and a fan of the album back when it was first released in 2004?

Absolutely. I love the music and Green Day was one of my favorite bands, actually. They remain so. When I got the audition for this job, I was actually really excited because I already knew it. I didn't have to learn any musical theater songs. It was music I knew inside and out for years. So prepping for that audition was really fun.

Having now spent a lot more time with the material than I'm sure you ever spent with the album, has it taken on any new kind of meaning? How did your relationship with the material change once you spent so much time with it?

It's funny. My understanding of the material changed entirely. Before rehearsals began, I listened to the album on repeat non-stop. As we got into rehearsal, and we put the music on its feet, and I heard people like Rebecca Jones singing songs that she sings and Tony Vincent singing the St. Jimmy stuff and I saw how the music fit into our story, the music completely took on this new identity for me...like I forgot what the Green Day version was and how it sounded coming from them. Tom Kitt arranged and rearranged the songs for the show and mashed some together that didn't originally go together... it's the weirdest thing that I knew the album so well and now it's almost been wiped away and replaced with this new version that feels so different. Especially the songs sung by the girls, like "Letterbomb." Billie Joe had actually written that song from a girl's perspective, but of course on the album you'd never know since he sings it. When the girls rock out to it, the song all of a sudden feels like it's about something so different than Billie Joe's version.

How much interaction and collaboration did you have with Green Day? What was it like working with musicians who really aren't theatrical composers by trade and how did that process differ from working with more musical theater-minded people?

They were very cool and very supportive. My first real experience working with them was in the studio where we spent 8 days recording our cast album which came out last week (April 20). I can't even describe what it was like recording with this band that I had looked up to forever. It blew my mind and was so surreal. And the day after the album came out I looked on iTunes and our cast album is number 2. That's insane! When I came on board, though, the show itself was pretty much put together and it was a lot of fine-tuning. The band was on tour at that point so they'd popped in at the end of a rehearsal, during the end of the rehearsal period. They didn't really get involved with a lot of acting stuff. But I know they were much more involved in the beginning. They cared so much. This is their story. Michael, Billie Joe and Tom Kitt really created the piece together. And I know that musically with Tom they were really on top of things, even when we weren't there. In fact, Joe brought Tom on board for their new Grammy winning album, 21st Century Breakdown, and had him do some string arrangements for that album because they became so in sync.

Hopefully all of you guys can keep in touch with the band.

I hope so! It's no longer an awkward, intimidating thing to be around them like it was in the beginning, naturally, since I was such a fan. They're really, really good people.

What about this show are you personally most proud of?

I'm proud that I get to do a Broadway musical. When I was a kid I sang in musicals in my high school. And I remember the first one I did was The Sound of Music and I played the youngest Von Trapp boy and I remember thinking "Oh, I love this" and then dreaming about getting to do it on Broadway someday. Being in a Broadway musical was always my ultimate - that was the top. I was very lucky to go to school and study acting. And then work and live in Los Angeles where I got to make movies and do television. I had very quick, very lucky success. But I always dreamed about being in a Broadway musical. I came a step closer three years ago when I got to do the play Journey's End which was an incredible experience. My mom always said "Stark, someday, you gotta do a musical. I really, really hope you get to do a musical." And now I get to do one. So I'm proud if I can make my mom proud!

Do you have a favorite American Idiot moment? Something that, even on the darker days, has made this whole experience especially great?

The best moment so far was when I got the job. It was a tough time. I had been selected as a finalist so I had to fly back to LA to do a final audition for Billie Joe, which was nerve wracking, and during the same time my girlfriend's English grandmother had passed away so I then flew to London for the funeral service. So it was sort of a sad time. I was actually in a small town outside of London for the funeral and the night before the service while I'm sitting at this sad dinner in the middle of a crowded restaurant Michael Mayer called me and said "Welcome to the show." It couldn't have come at a better time.

How about your least favorite moment - the time where you really confronted just how hard it is to be in a Broadway musical?

That would be the third week of rehearsal. We spent the first week of rehearsal learning the music and sitting around the piano and singing, singing, singing. And the second week was spent staging and restaging during the day, and then at night recording the album. It was incredible but I was signing literally all day long between rehearsals and recording because, remember, we don't have lines. I was singing in a way that I hadn't sung before, so I lost my voice. And I was terrified, because I thought, "I don't know if I can do this." It was like, "If I can't sing these songs in rehearsal, how am I going to do this on stage eight shows a week?" But I made some adjustments and I learned how to sing this in a way that I could save my voice for eight shows a week. But, I suppose you sort of have to hit bottom before you can appreciate everything else.

Anything disastrous ever happen on-stage? Unwanted drama?

(Laughs) Well, in one of our previews there's a bed onstage that is pushed around a lot. John Gallagher starts with a bed in the middle of the stage and then at one point it gets moved over and propped on a 45-degree angle. After this preset, I jump into the bed. There was one night that they'd changed the mattress, because Michael thought it was too bouncy. So the production crew brought in a much stiffer one. So the first night they brought on this very, very stiff mattress, when I jumped onto it, it popped out of the frame and slid onto the ground into the front row of the audience while I was sitting on it. So I took a nice little ride on the mattress.

Sounds like fun.

(Laughs) It was ridiculous. All the while I had to hold this note for a long time in "Boulevard of Broken Dreams" and there was nothing I could do to get back onstage during that note. But, I never sung it better in my life, probably because all I was thinking "Oh God, what am I going do?" So I did the whole number sitting on the bed on the ground with the corner of the mattress poking into someone's face in the front row. And eventually I found a way to get up, push the mattress back into its frame. But the show goes on. That's what I like about live theater-those moments, once you're in the groove you may freak out but you sort of go on auto-pilot. Truthfully, it's fun when something strange happens during this show.

How long are you contracted to stay with American Idiot? And do you have anything in the pipeline thereafter?

What's next is enjoying my days (laughs). I'm really looking forward to enjoying my daytime and focusing on the show at night now that we've got this huge monster opening behind us. I'm attached to the show for awhile, this is definitely the potentially longest job I'll have had, so we'll see how it goes and we'll see if it continues to sell and if audiences continue to enjoy it...I'll be here for a long time.

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American Idiot is currently playing the ST. James Theater on Broadway.  The show follows the journey of a new generation of young Americans as they struggle to find meaning in a post 9/11 world, borne along by Green Day's electrifying score. The musical includes every song from the acclaimed album American Idiot, as well as several songs from the band's Grammy Award-winning new release, 21st Century Breakdown, such as "21 Guns."

Green Day's American Idiot album sold more than 12 million copies worldwide. In its rock opera musical, Billie Joe Armstrong and the band have collaborated with one of the theatre's most acclaimed creative teams, led by the Tony Award-winning director of Spring Awakening, Michael Mayer, two-time Tony Award-winning composer and orchestrator Tom Kitt, and Olivier Award-winning choreographer Steven Hoggett, to bring the iconic album to the stage.

The cast of American Idiot stars Tony Award winner John Gallagher Jr. (Spring Awakening) alongside Tony Award Nominee Stark Sands (Journey's End), Michael Esper (A Man For All Seasons), Rebecca Naomi Jones (Passing Strange), Christina Sajous (The Wild Party), Mary Faber (Avenue Q) and Tony Vincent (Jesus Christ Superstar). Also featured in the cast are Declan Bennett, Andrew Call, Gerard Canonico, Miguel Cervantes, Joshua Henry, Van Hughes, Brian CharLes Johnson, Joshua Kobak, Lorin Latarro, Omar Lopez-Cepero , Leslie McDonel, Chase Peacock , Theo Stockman, Ben Thompson, Alysha Umphress, Aspen Vincent and Libby Winters.

For tickets and more information, visit www.americanidiotonbroadway.com.