Like a Blonde-Wigged Phoenix Rising From the TV Ashes, a Smash Musical Is Heading to Broadway

Fade in on a show, with a hunger for fame, and a face and a name to remember. Photo: NBC

As both Karen Cartwright and Ivy Lynn once sang as Marilyn Monroe in the fictional Broadway musical Bombshell from the very real, and very chaotic, TV musical series Smash: Don’t! Forget! Me! They really, really meant it. The day after the Smash cast reunited remotely to stream Bombshell in concert and eight years after the show premiered on NBC, the producers of the original TV series, Steven Spielberg, Robert Greenblatt, and Neil Meron, have announced plans for a live stage adaptation of the TV show, which they intend to bring to Broadway. Marc Shaiman and Scott Wittman, who wrote many of the songs for Smash and happen to have a Some Like It Hot musical in the works, are returning to write the score for the stage show. Bob Martin (of the campy delights The Prom and The Drowsy Chaperone) and Rick Elice (known for Jersey Boys and Peter and the Starcatcher) will write the book together. And congrats, fans of baseball stage pictures, Smash’s choreographer Joshua Bergasse will also choreograph the stage show. The producers have not announced any production dates yet, understandable given that the entire theater industry is currently shut down.

According to a release, Smash, a New Musical will “generally follow the rollercoaster ride of mounting Bombshell,� the show’s Marilyn musical-within-a-show (sorry, season 2 Hit List stans) but will “depart liberally from the series.� The characters of Tom and Julia (the show’s oft-scarved writing team) and dueling stars-to-be Ivy and Karen will “still be central to the storyline, but other details are being kept under wraps.� We look forward to seeing whether this reignites the infamous behind-the-scenes beefs that took place during the production of the series, which was created by Theresa Rebeck, who left after the first season to be replaced by Gossip Girl’s (both OG and reboot) Joshua Safran in its second and final season. Would it be too meta for the stage show to add a story line about Bombshell’s prospects for a screen adaptation?