The final show of the Department of Theatre’s Divergent Voices season promises to rock audiences with an emotional story and incredible score.

American Idiot opens Friday, April 13, in the Wharton Center for Performing Arts Pasant Theatre and runs through Sunday, April 22.

Directed and Co-Choreographed by Assistant Professor of Theatre Brad Willcuts, this Tony Award-winning musical with Grammy Award-winning music explodes onto the stage as a high-octane exploration of what it means to be young and different in suburban America.

American Idiot examines the boundaries and diverging voices of love and rage, patriotism and anarchy, and the personal versus the political. It is a raucous rallying cry for American youth who feel disenfranchised, powerless, and pissed off as they search for meaning in a coming-of-age story set to the violently passionate music of Green Day.

The story focuses on three close friends who choose to leave their mundane suburban abode to find inspiration and originality in the city and immediately find their path is laden with adversity.

This rock opera originated with Green Day’s concept album American Idiot, but when it moved to Broadway, the play was expanded and music added from multiple sources in the Green Day canon. When it first opened on Broadway in 2010, American Idiot was praised by New York Times theatre critic Charles Isherwood as “invigorating and ultimately as moving as anything I’ve seen on Broadway this season, or maybe for a few seasons past.”

In order to bring this contemporary musical to life in a very exciting way, the Department of Theatre has paired with Bluewater Technologies, a Michigan based Audio/Video Marketing company.

A director pre-show discussion is scheduled for Sunday, April 15, at 1:15 p.m. and a post-show discussion will take place on Thursday, April 19, following the performance.

Tickets are available from the Wharton Center Box Office.