Imagine the tagline:

Out of the success of Rock of Ages,
RENT meets JCS to see the creation of
Operation: Mindcrime….

Playbill has announced a new project, spearheaded by Adam Pascal, which would bring Operation: Mindcrime, the 1988 concept album by metal group Queensrÿche to stage.

So we have a concept album – hence the JCS mention above – inspired by RENT. Pascal says in the article that the cast size of the musical in which he originated the role of HIV-positive wannabe rocker Roger is ideal for this project and a similar attitude regarding the conception of the characters is in place at the start – “These characters can be any age, any ethnicity, they can have any backstory you want to give them.” And of course the success of Rock of Ages, which received a Tony nomination for Best Musical this season is probably something that indicates to Pascal that the time is right for this project to move forward. Hopefully he’ll take a page out of Next to Normal, which like RENT, has a rock-based score but which distills things like narrative clarity more successfully into the production.

Will it happen? Guess we’ll have to wait for next year, which is when Pascal hopes to present a reading of the show…