Rewind to 2012: Glee was one of the most-talked-about shows in America, and scarves were being manipulated in infinite ways. That’s the environment into which Smash debuted on NBC that February. The musical series, about the making of a Marilyn Monroe musical, had a promising pilot and positive reviews, but by April The New Yorker had declared it a hate-watch. And yet the show lasted two seasons with musical numbers that remained high quality. It continues to be a cult favorite and will now become one of the newest stage adaptations of a TV show to hit Broadway, just beating out Stranger Things. Here’s everything you need to know about the behind-the-scenes drama of this show about drama happening behind the scenes.
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The Basics
On the original Smash, the Marilyn musical is called Bombshell. But Broadway’s Smash musical is not Bombshell. The Smash musical is based on the TV show. And yet the Smash musical shares few characters or plots with the series, though it does share the songs and general premise. The show describes its own plot thus: “Legendary Broadway star Ivy Lynn causes a series of hilarious setbacks and surprises that brings a diva director, a bewildered producer, two exasperated authors, one eager understudy, and an entire company to its knees.”
Both the original show and the musical were produced by Steven Spielberg. Megan Hilty, who starred as Marilyn hopeful Ivy Lynn on Smash on TV, is currently on Broadway but not in Smash; she is instead in Death Becomes Her. American Idol alum Katharine McPhee played Ivy’s rival, Karen Cartwright.
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The Good-to-Know
Smash is largely considered terrible. It’s one of the original “hate-watch, love-recaps” shows of the 2010s. The playwright Theresa Rebeck, who was hired as the showrunner, was fired following the first season after lower-than-expected ratings and reportedly dysfunctional behind-the-scenes management. She was replaced by Gossip Girl executive producer Joshua Safran.
Ahead of the show’s second season, BuzzFeed ran a delicious tell-all in which the first season’s many failures (like inconsistent plotting and unfunny jokes) were explained.
The second season focuses equal attention on another musical being written in the show’s universe, called Hit List, which is loosely inspired by Rent, right down to the tragic death of one of its authors. “Let’s Be Bad,” one of the best-known songs from the TV show, was already on Broadway recently in the musical adaptation of Some Like It Hot, which featured a score by the songwriters of Bombshell (Marc Shaiman and Scott Wittman), who returned for the Broadway version.
Debra Messing, who starred as book writer Julia Houston on Smash on TV, was on Broadway recently in the play Shit. Meet. Fan. but won’t be in Smash.
Christian Borle, who starred as Julia’s writing partner, Tom Levitt (the composer), was also on Broadway this season but is not in the Smash musical. He played Jim Bakker in Tammy Faye, which quickly closed, taking over from his Falsettos co-star Andrew Rannells, who was announced to be in the show (after playing Jim in the London production) but then later dropped out over contract disputes. A very Smash plotline itself.
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The Drama, the Laughter
Since Smash went off the air in 2013, there have been multiple attempts to turn it into a live musical in some way; one included a Bombshell Kickstarter campaign that was, in 2015, the single most successful theater fundraiser in the site’s history. There was also a concert version of Hit List for two nights at 54 Below in 2013 with Smash cast members. “We had no idea people wanted this to happen,” Wittman told Vulture at the time.
Many fans of the show have turned on Katharine McPhee, who has since donated continuously to the GOP, which runs counter to the Smash fandom’s politics.
Reports claim Steven Spielberg did not like Megan Hilty (widely considered the best part of the show, owing to her remarkable voice and charming portrayal of Ivy) but did somehow love the devious assistant Ellis (Jaime Cepero), a terribly written character who at one point poisons Uma Thurman’s character with peanuts for no discernible reason In fact, Spielberg might even be the reason Ellis existed. “There was so much discussion about Hilty that Ellis just got on the show,” a source told BuzzFeed. Spielberg also originally wanted Aaron Sorkin to write the show, but he was unavailable at the time, leading the producers to Rebeck.
The first season, under Rebeck, was made fun of with such consistency for its cringey moments (most notably surrounding Julia’s attempts to adopt a child from China while having an affair with one of the show’s stars) that the second season included in-jokes about the first season’s lack of success. Julia’s scarves were reviled by reviewers and fans alike — New York published one article with the headline “Take a Tour of Debra Messing’s Remarkably Terrible Wardrobe on Smash” — leading Messing-as-Julia to tell Borle-as-Tom in the second season’s premiere that she shed the scarves.
During the workshop of Smash (Broadway version), the show ended on an extremely dour note, which audiences hated. The ending has since been rewritten to be happy.
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For the Obsessives
Despite its reputation as a distinctly network TV show, Smash was originally purchased for Showtime by Robert Greenblatt, who was then hired by NBC and brought the show with him. Broadway critic Michael Riedel gets name-checked in the show’s pilot and was supposed to make a cameo later in the show. It got cut, he claims, because he wrote negatively about the musical adaptation of 9 to 5, which Greenblatt produced (and Hilty starred in).
BuzzFeed’s report on the failures of the first season led Rebeck to email the writer, Kate Aurthur, multiple defensive statements about her time on Smash. “If in fact Theresa Rebeck was the problem with Smash and the train wreck it became, wouldn’t things have gotten better — rather than drastically worse — once she left?” Rebeck said in her first email. In the second, she wrote, “Most media reporters would agree that the second season is a complete disaster, and that the troubles with a once promising show go far beyond faring poorly in the ratings.”
The Smash pilot is still considered one of the strongest of the 2010s. At the time, The Hollywood Reporter called it “excellent, a bar-raiser for broadcast networks,” and Entertainment Weekly ranked it as the eighth-best episode of TV in 2012. “Smash does a very satisfying job of merging the pleasures of American Idol and commercial Broadway, placing the ‘hummable melody’ dead center and prioritizing fun,” The New Yorker wrote when it premiered. The pilot did so well that Seth Meyers made a joke about its success on SNL’s “Weekend Update”: “NBC’s highly promoted new series Smash won its time -slot Monday night, beating out CBS’s Hawaii Five-0, so get ready for two new NBC series, Smash: Criminal Intent and Smash: SVU.” Smash is heavily featured in a contemporaneous Super Bowl ad publicizing all of NBC’s lineup that includes such since-disgraced men as Donald Trump, Alec Baldwin, Chris D’Elia, CeeLo Green, and Brian Williams.
Andrew Rannells sang Smash’s signature song, “Let Me Be Your Star,” as his Girls character Elijah during an audition for a fake Broadway musical on the show’s sixth season.
During the show’s run, Debra Messing and Will Chase, whose characters had an affair during season one, dated. Both actors were married to other people when the series started filming.
Tala Ashe, who is currently starring on Broadway in the critically acclaimed play English, played a minor role during Smash’s first season. Nick Jonas, who played a minor character in Smash’s first season, is on Broadway this season in The Last Five Years. Krysta Rodriguez, who played Ana on the TV version of Smash, is the only main cast member returning for the Broadway version of Smash, but not as Ana. Instead, she’ll play “Tracy.”
More on ‘Smash’
- Wait, What Is the Broadway Smash Adaptation Even About?
- Let Smash Be Your Stream
- The Simple Life and Smash Alum Wins Editing Oscar