Shakespeare meets The Swinging Sixties
Termed a "Modish ripoff" by its creators, These Paper Bullets is a radical re-working of Shakespeare's celebrated romantic farce Much Ado About Nothing. Pulitzer Prize finalist Rolin Jones updates the play's events to the groovy London of the 1960s, with bad boy rock band The Quators (think the Rolling Stones in their heyday) arriving in the capital with libido to spare and their cash-hungry record company on their back.
Providing the score's Beatles-esque pop songs is Green Day's Grammy-winning frontman Billie Joe Armstrong, who helped to shepherd his band's American Idiot musical onto Broadway in 2010 to great acclaim. Among the cast of this Atlantic Theater Company staging are James Barry (Bloody Bloody Andrew Jackson) and Stephen Derosa (Into the Woods), while Jackson Gay directs.
WHAT IS THESE PAPER BULLETS ABOUT?
The Quatros, one of the UK's brightest new bands, arrive in 1960's London after finishing a gruelling world tour. Keen to sample all the delights that the capital has to offer, they set about trying to win the hearts the city's ladies. Things don't quite go according to plan, as their efforts are thwarted by farcical misunderstandings and acts of mischief.
DID YOU KNOW?
These Paper Bullets takes its title from Act 2, Scene 3 of Shakespeare's play: "Shall quips and sentences and these paper bullets of the brain awe a man from the career of his humor?"