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Smash Broadway
Smash Broadway

SMASH to Open on Broadway in 2024-2025 Season

Paul Art Smith | 

After years of fans longing to see more from the TV show, SMASH is coming to Broadway! Based on the beloved and iconic NBC series of the same name, SMASH, the stage musical adaptation, will open on Broadway in the 2024-2025 season, with Robert Greenblatt, Neil Meron, and Steven Spielberg serving as lead producers.

The production will be helmed by five-time Tony Award-winning director Susan Stroman, with a score by the Tony and Grammy-winning duo Marc Shaiman and Scott Wittman (Some Like It Hot, Hairspray, Mary Poppins Returns, etc.), who wrote over two dozen songs for the television show, many of which will be used in the musical. They will also be writing additional new material. The book will be co-written by two of Broadway’s most seasoned craftsmen, Tony-nominated Rick Elice (Jersey Boys, Peter and the Starcatcher) and Tony-winner Bob Martin (The Prom, The Drowsy Chaperone). Smash’s Emmy-winning choreographer, Joshua Bergasse, will reprise his role for the stage adaptation.

Steven Spielberg, whose original idea led to the NBC series, commented: “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.”

 “Speaking for myself and Neil Meron, we’re elated that Steven wanted to join us as we bring Smash to the stage, as we’ve always felt that Shaiman and Wittman’s incredible score belonged on Broadway. And collaborating with the incomparable Susan Stroman, one of the best directors of musicals, plus first-class bookwriters, Rick Elice and Bob Martin, and our original choreographer, Josh Bergasse, is pure joy,” Robert Greenblatt added.

Neil Meron commented, “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.”

Many of the songs Shaiman and Wittman wrote for the television show —including the Emmy-nominated “Let Me Be Your Star” — will be used in the new musical. And while the story will follow the harrowing and hilarious process of mounting Bombshell, the fictional Marilyn Monroe musical created in the TV show, the stage version of Smash will also depart liberally from the series.

Smash was groundbreaking in its ambitiousness and developed a devoted following, but its popularity has only grown in the following years. The cast performed a charity benefit concert of the songs from Bombshell at the Minskoff Theatre in June of 2015 which sold out in fifteen minutes. It was filmed and eventually streamed during the early days of the pandemic in 2020 as a benefit for The Actor’s Fund (Entertainment Community Fund).

The critically-acclaimed Smash debuted on NBC in February 2012 to raves from The Los Angeles Times (“A triumph”), The San Francisco Chronicle (“It’s so good you can’t help wondering why no one thought of it before”), The Hollywood Reporter (“Excellent, a bar-raiser for broadcast networks and superior to Glee”), and The Huffington Post (“One of the strongest new shows of the season”), among many others.