Erin Rose Solorio, Sean Okuniewicz, Joel Roster, and Cast Photo by Dave Lepori and Patrick Kusumoto

With their virtual-goggled eyes focused on their hand-held devices, a line of identically dressed Gaga Kids moving about awkwardly in robotic fashion sing "Radio Gaga" in impressively striking harmonies: "No need to think, no need to feel when only cyberspace is real." Today is graduation and they are marching off to a summer of sitting alone in their darkened rooms, always on an internet which "makes us laugh, makes us cry, makes us feel like we can fly."

But in their class is one boy dressed in black with slicked back hair who calls himself not by the .com address all others go by, but by a name that just came to his head, Galileo Figaro. This is a kid who keeps notebooks listing words and phrases that appear to him in his dreams–ones like "blue suede shoes," "yellow submarine," and "Gangnam Style." While he has no idea what they mean or why he suddenly says things like "I really, really wanna zig-a-zig-ah," Galileo bursts into a pumping, popping "I Want to Break Free," just the first of many times Sean Okuniewicz will wow us with his exactingly exciting, pristine-clear, and power-punching vocals.

But the ever-present, always-listening commander of police, Khashoggi (one of many groaner puns), surrounds Galileo with her Nazi-like troops and sends him off to a wired-in prison for daring to be and think differently. Soon to join is a goth girl whom the Gaga's mock in echoing refrains as Scaramouche (Erin Rose Solorio) sings in her striking voice, "Somebody to Love," after reading some of the pages of Galileo's scattered notebook pages and pleading in notes building into peaks of piercing power, "Find me, find me, find me, can anybody find me," somebody like the one who wrote those words on those pages.

After she too is arrested and wakes up wired in a dark room, Scaramouche finds herself next to an awakening Galileo. While theirs is definitely not love at first sight, the two soon form what is nothing short of a powerhouse duet of rock-n-roll-ready voices as they shake the rafters singing about what both have been seeing all around them: "The terror of knowing what this world is about, watching some good friends screaming, 'Let me out.'" Jointly feeling "Under Pressure," they risk escape into the Wasteland, becoming what Galileo phrases after another sudden brain blip, "we're rebels now 'cos, baby, we were born to run."

But they are not the only ones roaming about ruined remnants of a world long lost. Bursting onto the scene are Meat and Brit, punk-rock wannabes who have found their looks and names from remnants of centuries-old posters–her name being in total, "Meatloaf," and his, "Britney Spears." As they scavenge the dumps and ruins for any signs of a time when thousands gathered to listen to music without fear, Z Hansen (Brit) and Amanda Le Nguyen (Meat) raise the temperature with sexy moves and undulating bodies along with stage-filling slides and jumps like those that once thrilled in rock arenas as they sing a down-and-dirty, ass-kicking "I Want It All."

These two rockers on the run of course find the other pair of now "most-wanteds" and bring them to a hidden haven full of youth who have taken on the looks and names of those they too have seen on scavenged posters–names like Madonna, Little Richard, David Bowie, and Boy George–with lots of hilarious gender-mixing, since they are not clear who these people really were hundreds of years prior. A geezer looking a lot like his namesake would have looked in his old age, Harry Styles, is just called Pops by all the youngsters, bringing some wisdom to these self-named Bohemians that he gathered through the years. Joel Roster's Pop will later serenade us in a folksy, rugged voice with the reflective ballad, "These Are the Days of Our Lives."

As Galileo asks out of the blue questions like "Why do fools fall in love?" and "Who let the dogs out?," Meat, Brit, and Pop become convinced he is the prophesied Dreamer who will lead them to a hidden treasure to bring back the Age of Rock. But even as they all rigorously revel in a jitterbugging, hand-jiving "Crazy Little Thing Called Love," salvation is not at all near at hand.

Evil is still all around, with the sharp-tongued, shrill-intoned Khashoggi (Heather Mae Steffen) ready to take her turn at the mike and in the torture chamber ("Seven Seas of Rhye"). Her devilish drive to wipe out all Bohemians and rebels is to make sure the wrath of her boss, Killer Queen, does not come down on her. Nick Tabora reigns not only over iPlanet as the notorious, ego-inflated KQ but also on the stage before us. Her drag persona struts pompously in with sexy sass, leg-length boots, red-puckered lips, lavishly-long lashes, and paused poses waiting for camera flashes, just as do her fiery, high-voltage vocals in songs like "Don't Stop Me Now," "Another One Bites the Dust," and of course, "Killer Queen."

Ben Elton's fantastical script is mostly a means to get to the end–a sometimes silly, pun-loaded, and oft-predictable story that allows its many celebrated songs eventually to find their way to a much-anticipated destination of "We Will Rock You," "We Are the Champions," and the "Bohemian Rhapsody" finale. In every instance, this cast delivers the hell out of number after number, making the storyline almost irrelevant.

Add in eye-popping, singularly spectacular costumes by Pamela Rodriguez-Montero, fabulously executed choreography that covers a huge range of rock-n-roll and dance styles (Jenni Hong, choreographer), and a five-piece band under the music direction of Benjamin Belew that takes center stage time and again with its rocking and reeling rendering of these Queen classics. Put all that together with the lighting and sound masteries of designers Kiyomi Muntz and Steve Schoenbeck, respectively, and frankly, who cares that much about the story?

Like the namesake band whose music this jukebox musical celebrates, We Will Rock You is foremost about the showmanship and the sound that this excellent, thirteen-person cast under the direction of Will Detlefsen brings to San Jose Stage Company in this two-hour, ten-minute (including one intermission) production. For anyone who is a Queen fan, do not let June 28th come and go without securing a ticket for a rock-and-roll feast of a fest.

We Will Rock You runs through June 28, 2026, at San Jose Stage Company, 490 South 1st Street, San Jose CA. For tickets and information, please visit www.thestage.org, email boxoffice@thestage.com, or call 408-283-7142.