‘Smash’
Will Hart/NBC/Courtesy Everett Collection
Smash is getting one step nearer to Broadway.
A musical adaptation of the NBC tv collection, additionally entitled Smash, is now slated to open on Broadway within the 2024-2025 season, producers Robert Greenblatt, Neil Meron and Steven Spielberg stated Wednesday. The manufacturing has tapped Susan Stroman, the Tony Award-winning director of The Producers, who’s at present engaged on the brand new musical, New York, New York, as its director.
Shaiman and Wittman, the composers of Hairspray and the at present working Broadway musical, Some Like It Hot, are writing the rating, which incorporates new materials, in addition to many songs the duo wrote for the tv present, together with the Emmy-nominated “Let Me Be Your Star.”
The tv present, which ran on NBC from 2012-2013, starred Debra Messing, Jack Davenport, Megan Hilty, Katharine McPhee and Christian Borle and adopted their ups and downs as they mounted musicals for Broadway, together with Bombshell, a fictional musical in regards to the lifetime of Marilyn Monroe. The authentic concept for the collection got here from Spielberg (he was a producer on Aaron Sorkin’s 2007 play, The Farnsworth Invention and has seen his movies, corresponding to Catch Me If You Can, tailored for the stage). Playwright Theresa Rebeck created the collection and wrote the pilot.
“Smash is near and dear to my heart, and it was always my hope that a musical inspired by the show would eventually come to the stage. We now have an incredible creative team, and I’m looking forward to completing the Smash journey which began with my producing partners over ten years ago,” Spielberg stated.
The stage adaptation will even see its characters making an attempt to create Bombshell, however the manufacturing says it should “also depart liberally from the series.” Rick Elice (Jersey Boys) and Bob Martin (The Prom) are writing the ebook to the musical. Joshua Bergasse, the choreographer for the tv present, will reprise his position for the stage adaptation.
The Broadway present has been within the works for years. Greenblatt and different group members started speaking about bringing the present to a much bigger stage after a 2015 one-night charity profit live performance model of Bombshell, which featured performances by the tv forged. It was introduced for Broadway in 2020, and the group held a developmental workshop of the present final summer season.
“Ever since the show ended in 2012, not a week goes by that someone doesn’t ask us when will they see Smash as a musical. We think we’ve come up with something the die-hard series fans will love but that will also be exciting for people who never saw an episode of the show. And above all else it will be a valentine to the Broadway musical and the exhilarating rollercoaster ride of bringing one to life,” Meron stated.
