Fade in on a girl with a hunger for fame and… a Broadway show to her name. Smash, the beloved (and lovingly derided) NBC musical series that followed rival actresses on their quest to star as Marilyn Monroe in a big Broadway musical, will be making its way to Broadway next year.
Lead producers Robert Greenblatt, Neil Meron and Steven Spielberg announced on Wednesday that Smash is set to make its Broadway bow during the 2024-2025 season. The musical comedy will be directed by five-time Tony winner Susan Stroman, choreographed by Emmy-winner Joshua Bergasse, and feature music and lyrics from March Shaiman and Scott Wittman, and a book by Rick Elice & Bob Martin.
Spielberg, who came up with the idea for the NBC series and helped produced via Dreamworks Television, said “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.”
The NBC series began with a bang, kicking off with a much-admired first episode that introduced us to warring actresses Karen, played by American Idol runner-up Katharine Foster (then McPhee), and Ivy, played by Broadway it girl Megan Hilty. The ensemble was rounded out by Broadway veterans like Christian Borle, Will Chase, and Leslie Odom Jr., TV royalty like Debra Messing, and Oscar winner Anjelica Huston. But while the show’s pilot, which premiered after the Super Bowl in February 2021, was a hit, the series had a tricky time living up to the hype—and ended after just two seasons. Despite its relatively short shelf life, NBC’s Smash has had a surprisingly long tail and outsized impact on culture. Songs from the show have popped up on other television shows, like HBO’s Girls, and its number have been performed at multiple sold-out concerts.
Still, the mind reels at the implication of Smash’s imminent Broadway bow, which takes meta-theatrics to a whole new level. Will #TeamIvy vs. #Team Karen discourse proliferate the theater community once again? What are the producers doing about the fact that the song “Let’s Be Bad”—written for Smash—currently appears in a different Marilyn Monroe-centric Broadway musical, Some Like It Hot? Will a stage adaptation of Bombshell, the rival Marilyn Monroe musical in the series, pop up at some buzzy Off-Broadway theater, like BAM? What’s the scarf budget? In any case, it’s officially time to get back off book on both the soprano and alto harmonies of “Let Me Be Your Star.”