A ‘Smash’ Musical From Steven Spielberg Is Heading to Broadway
The Smash musical is finally becoming a reality. It was announced May 21 that Steven Spielberg, Robert Greenblatt and Neil Meron will produce Smash: A New Musical for Broadway.
Based on the cult NBC drama which ran for two seasons from 2012 through 2013, the project will reunite Smash‘s Marc Shaiman and Scott Whittman, who collaborated on writing various tunes for the TV show. According to Broadway.com, Bob Martin and Rick Elice will co-write the musical’s book.
“I am personally thrilled to be a part of this musical and its road to Broadway,” Spielberg said in a statement. “Smash is near and dear to my heart, and it seems fitting that a new musical inspired by what we did on the show would eventually come to the stage.”
Spielberg — whose latest directorial project is a big-screen version of another beloved musical, West Side Story — helped develop Smash when it ran on NBC, serving as an executive producer on the show during its brief 32-episode run.
Smash followed the backstage drama as a team of performers and crew worked to put on a musical, Bombshell, based on the life of Marylin Monroe. So this new Broadway iteration will be a show about putting on a musical; in other words, a musical-within-a-musical.
The television production featured an all-star cast of talent including Katherine McPhee, Megan Hilty, Debra Messing, Jack Davenport, Christian Borle and Anjelica Huston, among many others. During its run, Smash was nominated for various awards, including Emmys, Golden Globes and a Grammy. It did take home one Emmy for choreography in 2012.
The musical will include the show’s well-known songs, including “Let Me Be Your Star,” but will reportedly depart from the original story in some aspects. The characters Julia (Messing) and Tom (Borle), who are writers, and performers Ivy (Hilty) and Karen (McPhee), will still play a role, but other details are relatively under wraps for now.
The news comes shortly after the show’s cast reunited for a virtual event which also streamed the 2015 Bombshell: In Concert benefit for The Actors Fund.
Reacting the exciting news, McPhee told Broadway.com, “I’ll be there with my 16-bars, I’m ready to audition. The fans are going to go wild — this makes me really happy. I’m thinking about the whole cast’s reaction to this: they’re going to be so excited. It’s going to be the best opening night ever!”
With Broadway currently shut down, fans shouldn’t expect anything to come to fruition in the near future, but can certainly look forward to the production which is officially happening.
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