American Idiot Musical

They were all sitting around the table in the teacher's room, or scattered on the floor, and all of them were looking up at Mr. Handsome (yes, that's his surname).

He was looking down at them all, proud of his choices.

"Goodmorning, people." He greeted them.

"Goodmorning, Professor." They all said.

"I would like to introduce to you the boy who gave me the idea for this end-of-school-year's musical."

Some of the people looked excited, others looked just bored.

Mr. Handsome turned towards the door and gestured to a dark-haired boy to come in.

"Guys, this is Billie Joe. He wrote all of the songs in the musical."

At this, some of the girls looked up with a look of admiration on their faces.

“And since he wrote them,” he continued, “and I have seen him perform them, I believe he’s the perfect boy to play the main character.”

A short silence followed this statement. A tall boy, with his dark brown hair hanging in front of his eyes, spoke.

“What is this musical about, anyway? Why did you choose me?”

“Good question, Mike,” Mr Handsome answered, “You’ll find out soon enough.”

He picked up what looked like scripts and walked through the boys and girls, handing one script to each of them.

When he reached Mike, he immediately read the title.

“American Idiot? What’s this?” he asked.

“This is a musical unlike any others of the same kind. The main character is a punk kid, a rebel, who doesn’t like his life: he hates his step-father, he has nearly no friends, he dislikes the Government with all his might. Sick of it all, he runs away from home and heads to the city, where he has the time of his life.”

The people in the room were listening silently, as if he was telling a fairy-tale to a group of children.

“But then he realizes the city is not the place for him, and lost and alone, he thinks longingly about his life back at home. He meets old friends in the city, but he also thinks often about his girlfriend. Or what he believes is his girlfriend. But you’ll get a better idea if you read your script.” He ended.

“Hey wait a minute!” Mike yelled.

Mr. Handsome turned slowly to face him.

“Yes, Mike?”

“You chose him to be the main character? He should be a punk kid? When you said there was a punk kid involved, I thought it was me. So why did you choose me, anyway, to be in this musical thing?” Mike asked pointing at Billie Joe.

“Listen, Mike,” said Mr. Handsome kindly, “I know you’d have loved to be the main character, and I admit I’ve thought immediately of you for the role, but… I have better plans for you, trust me.”

He left Mike angry but speechless. Satisfied with his answer, he turned to the other people.

“Alright, guys, now that we have sorted everything out, I want you all to go home and read your script while listening to the CD I gave you. You’ll find on the last page the list of the roles. Don’t look at it until you’ve finished reading. Before you look at it, try to think which character in the musical would fit best for you, then check if I got it right. Which I’m sure I did. Goodbye.”

He smiled one last time at them and walked out the door.

Everybody was left there, and they were all staring at Billie Joe now, who blushed for the sudden amount of attention they were paying to him, as if they were expecting him to say something.

“Um… I… It’s been nice to see you all. Bye…” He said, unsurely, and walked out after Mr. Handsome.

Nobody said anything, they all looked at each other silently, waiting for someone to break the silence.

Suddenly, Mike grunted something which nobody understood, and stormed out, looking very angry.

No one dared to follow him. Mike was the punk kid, everybody knew that, and everybody had the same question in mind: why not him?

Slowly, one by one, boys and girls stood up and headed to their home, thinking about their meeting.