Flaming Lips ‘Yoshimi’ Stage Musical to Launch in November

Writer-director Dez McAnuff will turn the Flaming Lips’ album “Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots” into a musical at the La Jolla Playhouse

The Flaming Lips are about to give Green Day a run for their money in the rock-musical department.

The Lips' 2002 album, "Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots," is being turned into a musical by Tony Award-winning director Des McAnuff, of "Jersey Boys" fame.

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"Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots" will be the final production of the 2012-2013 season at the La Jolla Playhouse in La Jolla, Calif,, where McAnuff serves as director emeritis, running in Nov./Dec. 2012.

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The play will employ music from several Flaming Lips albums, including "Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots," "At War With the Mystics" and "The Soft Bulletin."

The production will tell the story of Yoshimi, "a young Japanese artist facing the battle of her life: the battle for her life. Adrift from her family and lover, Yoshimi journeys alone into a fantastical robot-world where she wages a war with fate," La Jolla Playhouse said.

Plans to turn "Yoshimi" — which yielded the hit single "Do You Realize??" — into a musical have been germinating for some time. In 2007, news broke that McAnuff was working on an incarnation of the album for Broadway, with "West Wing" honcho Aaron Sorkin writing the script.

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