Theater News

Be More Chill's Joe Iconis Developing Jukebox Musical Punk Rock Girl

Songs by Avril Lavigne, P!nk, Pat Benatar, and more will be included in the stage score.

Joe Iconis is developing a new musical, Punk Rock Girl, with a score comprising songs by female musicians.
Joe Iconis is developing a new musical, Punk Rock Girl, with a score comprising songs by female musicians.
(© David Gordon)

According to a Deadline report, Be More Chill composer Joe Iconis is in the process of developing a new musical titled Punk Rock Girl, featuring songs written or made famous by such female musicians or female-fronted bands as Avril Lavigne, Pink, Pat Benatar, and Blondie.

Iconis will pen the book and musical arrangements, with direction and choreography by Jennifer Werner (The Black Suits) and orchestrations by Rob Rokicki (The Lightning Thief: The Percy Jackson Musical), who will also serve as co-arranger. The project was announced today by Lively McCabe Entertainment as a collaboration with BMG and R&H Theatricals.

The story of Punk Rock Girl follows 16-year-old Angela Quivers, "a perfectionist who never takes chances and feels like there's no place where she belongs until she meets Proxi, a teenager who pulls her into a world of grungy guitars, shocking secrets, and big, loud, messy emotions." Additional bands whose songs will be included in the score are Bikini Kill, Echosmith, ATraLaLa, and Yeah Yeah Yeahs (the title track being a 1988 single by The Dead Milkmen).

Iconis is set to make his Broadway debut this March with his new musical Be More Chill, which completed a sold out off-Broadway run this past summer at the Pershing Square Signature Center.