Broadway 'Smash' Adaptation Insights

What is better than the first day of rehearsal for a Broadway show? Nothing! We're thrilled to be here this morning with all of you. It really does take a village, right? The reveal of the key art. This is Smash. Everybody you see here today are the best of Broadway. Our creative team, the cast and crew, our designers, our agencies and management company. We have the best of the best. The best of the best. This is so exciting. This show is fabulous, the book is fabulous, the music is fabulous. Everybody in this room is so wonderful and so funny and so talented. It's going to be great. It's going to be great. In these times, nobody wants to see a depressing show. So grateful to finally be bringing laughter and joy of Broadway into the show. We are a star! Born to be a star! Hello and welcome. My name is Chris Murphy and I'm a staff writer at Vanity Fair and I am really thrilled to be moderating this discussion and I see we don't we all have chairs I wanted to make sure okay that's good. I am thrilled to be moderating this discussion with the creative team behind Smash. I have to say I was trying to play cool backstage and not fangirl too much but this is really huge for me. as a former theater kid to be talking to all these people. I think we got to, you know, I know you just heard the introduction, but just so everyone knows who we're talking to, we've got Susan Stroman, the director. Hey, hey, hey. We've got Josh Burgos, the choreographer. Rick Ellis, book writer. Bob Martin, also co-book writer. Mark Shaman, composer and co-lyricist. Yeah. And Scott Whitman, co-lyricist as well. Now, I feel like, to kick it off, obviously, we've got an incredible show that's coming, but I want to go all the way back to the source material, which is, of course, the NBC cult hit show, Smash, that I remember exactly where I was when I watched the first episode after the Super Bowl in 2012, and I would love to know... And I guess it would make most sense to start with Mark and Scott, as you wrote the incredible, incredible songs for the series. What were your relationships with to the television show? Because you weren't all involved with the show in its original run. But I'll kick it off. Well, the phone rang one day, and it was Steven Spielberg. How did you get this number? and Neil Maron and Craig Zayden who we had known because we wrote Hairspray and they produced the Hairspray movie. And we had done a lot of work with them. And they said, we want to do a TV series about the creation of a Broadway musical. And we would follow the whole trajectory from page to stage in one year. And then that show would open up on Broadway. Oh, wow, that'll be fun. We can write a new Broadway show every year. Sounds really easy. Of course that didn't happen. So we did two seasons, and we wrote... The only thing we ever all agreed on, on the TV series, was what the musical should be. And that was Marilyn, because you could sort of drop in and out of her story. Everyone kind of had a vague memory of what her life was. It was... It reflected the show business and the struggles that these two characters, the two ladies in the story, were going through. So that seemed natural. So we wrote a song almost every week. Josh choreographed every week. We would write a song on a Monday, teach it to the girls on Tuesday. They would record it on Wednesday, stage it on Thursday, and film it on Friday. Wow. It was like being in MGM in the 1950s. And then over time, we always thought, I wonder if this would ever work on stage. And then these two gentlemen, Bob Martin and Rick Ellis, came into our lives, as did Susan Stroman, and we decided they had come up with a concept for it. So that's where we are today. I would love to know, so for Bob and Mark, I'm so sorry, Bob and Rick, did you watch the show when it was initially on? Were you were you smash watchers or? I was familiar with it. Yes. They were hate watchers. I saw the I was lucky enough to I too so you were in it I I I was in it but I was cut because you were I was too I I apparently I improvised a scene um no I at the time that they were shooting I think I think maybe the last episode of the first season, I was rehearsing a play called Peter and the Starcatcher, which was starring Christian Borle, who was starring in Smash. And Bernie Telsey, who did the casting for Smash, the television series, is somebody that we all have come to know over the years. And I called him and I said, is there some way that I could go and really ruin Christian's day by sitting next to him in the makeup chair at 5.30 in the morning and he'll walk in really tired and it'll be me. And so he said, yeah, yeah, you'll come. And so I took a ferry to Staten Island, I think, and was very rude in front of Christian and Deborah Messing who were playing the two writers at the time. watching the first public performance of the show Bombshell, and in front of them were two obnoxious people talking about not liking the show very much, and they were the writers and they were hearing it. And apparently I was so realistic that it got cut. Wow. But I still get a 43-cent check every year from NBC. That's not bad. Susan, did you have a walk-on role on Smash as well or no? No, I never. My name was on Smash, I think, for something. They used my name. But no, but I did watch it. I loved it. I watched it. I wouldn't miss it. I loved it. I love that. I would love to know, because Smash, it lasted two seasons, sort of a comet. It burned really brightly. It did not last that long. When did you realize, I guess this is, again, for Mark and Scott, that Smash's legacy might be longer than those two seasons on television, that it might endure past its run? Well, we did a concert like five years after this show, so that was sort of five years, five or six years ago. We did a one-night concert of all the songs that we wrote for Bombshell, the musical, at the Minskoff. Minskoff. It was for the Actors Fund. We raised a lot of money. One woman told me she had sold her car to buy a ticket. Wow. And that was spectacular. Scott and I felt like the Beatles for one night. Every single time a song started. just went insane and and so people kept coming to us about you know trying to i mean neil maron and bob greenblatt our producers but they kept trying to figure out how to put on bombshell the maryland musical that we were creating but it as soon as we started writing for the tv show It became apparent that the songs that we were writing needed to mirror what the characters on Smash were going through and find ways that Marilyn's life mirrored that. So the songs weren't exactly like what you would write for... for a book musical about Marilyn Monroe. Not to mention we were writing these neck-bursting showstoppers for these ladies to sing once a week. And if one woman ever tried to sing them all in one night, she, like Marilyn Monroe, would die at the end. at the end. Someone even pitched this one idea about it would start in an insane asylum. Oh yes, it did. It was an insane asylum and it was kind of like Kiss of the Spider Woman. She was in an insane asylum and she thought she was Marilyn Monroe. So finally, finally these two guys came along and wanted to take another look at like what the TV show was like, people putting on a musical, but what they have brought to it besides they've just brought a lot of humor, a lot of heart and humor because on the TV show, they wanted it to be like a soap opera. And we kept saying, but no matter what happens on a musical, you'll hear laughter coming from that room. Even if people are fighting, you'll still hear people having a great time. And so these two guys have brought that into it. And now we have a real comedy. Right. Most people here have probably seen Noises Off, yes, or that That movie, The Bandwagon with Fred Astaire. So those are kind of the vibe we were going for. Wow. Okay. That's very exciting. I would love to ask Josh, you were on the show and choreographed for the show. Yes. And now are part of the creative team. What has that transition like been for you? Well, I think, you know, the biggest thing for me, as far as choreographing the TV series and then now choreographing the Broadway show, is the basic fundamental difference between film and live theater, where with film, the camera does so much of the work for you. It tells you, the audience, what you need to look at, right? All those shots gives you the exact story, the clarity of what you need to follow in a big musical number. When you're choreographing for the stage, then I have to make sure that I'm designing these production numbers so that you still know what story to follow, which characters to look at, so that the numbers make sense and the story makes sense and moves forward. So I think that's the biggest difference for me, is making sure that I'm designing these numbers so that they can be viewed by a live audience and still make sense and still be beautiful and not with the help of the camera. okay that that makes a lot of sense and i it's interesting because susan you've never not choreographed a show that you've directed you always have pulled double duty this is your first time handing over the reins to someone else how did you both navigate that it's going very well that's good that's good it's going very well no i i did get the call uh to ask if i would be interested in directing and not choreographing and at the time I said oh I don't I don't think so unless it was some extraordinary situation and then there was silence and I said well why are you asking me this question like that and they said well we want you to direct smash but we would love Josh to choreograph it and I had made such a fuss over him for the tv choreography and uh when he was doing it on tv I said oh thank god they got a choreographer that understands this and so the idea that we would be together on this piece. It just thrilled me. So I said, well, let me have dinner with him and let's see how we do. And of course, we met up and chatted about how we would navigate this. And it's been wonderful. And he's an exceptional choreographer and a great collaborator. So it's been fantastic. It's been fantastic. I will say that after our reading, before Susan was on board, we were standing around in a circle. And I think it was Steven Spielberg who said, you know... We should talk to Susan Stroman about directing and I thought there goes my job Yeah, I just want to ask you what it's it like you when you're in the room Choreographing and Susan Stroman is beyond you and for me it would be like if Leonard Bernstein was back there I was sweaty for a while. I was sweaty at first, but now we you know, we really built this great collaboration and we you know it's been so fun and we were so supportive of each other and it's been very nice and Mark and Mark and I have been trying dying to work with Stroman for many many years we've known each other for a long time so we're very happy about that we would see each other in in the bars, the local bars. So finally we're in a rehearsal room together. Ah, the watering holes. Well, I love that because so much of Smash is about the making of a musical, right? It's about the making of Bombshell. But on the series, you know, it's sort of about Karen and Ivy and who's going to be Marilyn, and that's the overarching storyline. But with the Broadway play, it seems that you've broken up the story, broken open the story in a different way. So can you walk through or let us in to what the new sort of... Storyline or plot might entail for this version of smash on stage. Well, we'd rather not No, we've actually talked about how much of the story do we give away? But but but yes just in ins to begin with a more general statement We Rick and I had been working on a bunch of musicals when we I became aware of this music and how wonderful it was. And because we had been writing musicals, we were filled with anger. And we thought this would be a way to process all of that. a lot of money on therapy. And we talked, we actually said exactly that to Mark and Scott as well. This would be a wonderful way for you to rid yourself of the burden of what it's like to create art at some point. And really, that's what this story is. It's about the improbable way that art is created. And in this case, it's musical. The writers and the creative team within our show set out to do one thing. And because of a series of farcical events, they end up with a completely different show. Now, in terms of the story, well, there is an Ivy Lynn. There is a Karen. That's about it. You know, we... Because there's a fan base, this rabid fan base from the cult. um, crowd that follows the show and has followed it on Netflix or wherever it's on now, um, we, we, we, we wanted to, we, we, we wanted to keep, we wanted to keep two characters, but as really as just a way to lead the audience down the garden path, because what we've, um, what we pitched the guys and Stroh, um, is more of a, like a fan fiction of, of people who like us watched the TV show and thought, well, you know, I mean, two people competing for the same part, you know, like first day rehearsal somebody knows who's playing the part. So we decided to, we're like, okay, so we'll take a little bit and then we'll invent something that is more true to our experience as musical theater writers and just lean into it a little bit because, you know, the thing that makes something really funny sometimes is something that is really, really terrible, but you just lean into it a little bit, and it seems so crazy that you laugh. So we've invented certain situations that, of course, we mustn't tell you about because they'd have to kill us then. But we've invented, it's a farce that has elements of the original in it. And, you know, one of the sort of principles of adaptation is to create something that exists in parallel to the original. And so out of curiosity, how many people here saw the TV series? That's exactly what I thought. Quite a few people. Okay, okay. Well, you're going to be terribly disappointed. No, I don't think you will. I think you're going to be really excited because you're going to see this completely... Why didn't they do that? It's like in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. universe, how there's the multiverse, how like all those different Spider-Men all exist in different whatever, and then how they all came together in that one. This is the multiverse version of Smash. This is the comedy version. The multiverse version that could be performed eight times a week too, you know, that's the thing. You have, you know, Mark alluded earlier to the idea of these amazing songs. I mean, that's the other thing. That's the other thing, you know, we're book writers, So we live and die on the strength of what... Other people do, which is the songs. Not die, not die. Well, I mean, speak for yourself. I've died a few times. You know, it's like... Get blamed if it goes south. Yes, me too. But the idea of making something that is a fan fiction of Smash that can also be performed eight times a week is a particular challenge. And the insanity of those things... It's a little bit like being in a sailboat. Imagine you're in a sailboat and you're starting here. And then I'm sailing over to those people all over there. And it's a sailboat because it doesn't have an engine. So you think, okay, here's the story we're going to tell. We're going to go from here to there. And then you start sailing and then the wind changes and suddenly, uh-oh, now we're going that way. So you tack. Some people say tacked, but that's the wrong word. It's tack. You tack, and you tack a little bit too strongly, and now suddenly you're going over that way, and then the wind dies, and then by then you're sort of exhausted, and you think, well, that looks pretty good. And so, and that's what it's like to make a musical. Comprehensive. This is another informal poll. How many people were confused by that metaphor? I got seasick. Well, I feel like that is a great transition to seeing what the sailboat looks like, and we're going to see a couple performances tonight. So I'm going to throw it over. Thank you very much. I'll throw it over to Susan. Let's turn it over to Scott and Mark about setting up this song, Secondhand White Baby Grand. Okay, so this first song, there's a character in the show, Tracy, who's the lyricist and the book writer. And then there's Ivy Lynn, who plays Marilyn. She's a Broadway star already. Tracy decides that she wants to maybe add some more depth. In the beginning, they decided they were going to do a celebration of Marilyn's life because no one wants to see a depressing show. So, but Tracy decides maybe we can put a little more depth into this show, and she pitches this song to the character of Ivy. in hopes that she can get it into the show. The song is called Secondhand White Baby Grand, and it's actually based on, we wrote it based on a true story from Marilyn Monroe's life. She had a very crazy mother, and they had a white baby grand piano when she was a child, and she was sort of shuttled to foster home to foster home, and she spent her whole life trying to find that piano again, and And she did eventually find the piano, and eventually it ended up in, of all places, Mariah Carey's house. So the song is about this piano and about Tracy pitching the song to Marilyn. Yes, so here is Krista Rodriguez and Robin Hurter as stars of Sniper. It was out of tune, but still I learned to play And with each note we both would smile Forgetting who we are And all the pain would simply fly away Something secondhand and broken Still can make a pretty sound Even if it doesn't have a place to live All the words were left unspoken When my mama came around But that secondhand white baby grand Still had something beautiful to give Through many years the music had to roll Until we found a way to make it work to find a home. So now I wake up every day and see her standing there just waiting for a part to compose. And I wish my mother still could hear that sound beyond compare. I'll play her song till everybody knows That something second-hand Still can make a pretty sound Don't we all deserve a family room? To live, oh the words can't stay unspoken Until everyone has found that Secondhand white baby bread That still has something beautiful To give, I still have something beautiful to give Unbelievable I'd just like to say something quickly about, Krista was on the TV show and we never got to write a song for her, so we're overjoyed that she's singing. Finally, she used to sing in the other show. but she's finally singing one of ours so i'm very very happy about that yeah oh that was absolutely oh so amazing and i have to i have to know how do you assemble a cast to take on you know such incredible material How did you land on the cast that you've assembled for this show? Well, we had auditions for a very long time. But I have to say, these two gals, Krista, right away we thought it would be lovely to have her be part of this. And then Robin Herter, we also knew, had to play Marilyn Monroe. So Robin came in and we explored her vocally and had her read for us. But she nailed it every time. So. It was pretty much from day one, these two gals that you just saw. And one thing that we don't get to see here tonight, Robin Hurter is one of the best dancers on Broadway right now. So, yeah. She's a true triple threat. I was thinking that just now. If you knew what they were just doing today, all day at rehearsal, you wouldn't even believe that they're standing. I mean, and what Robin, I mean, oh, my God. Robin Robin is definitely in the world of Chita Rivera and Gwen Verdon. She is that triple threat professional. performer, singer, dancer, actor, funny. She's the first in warming up in the morning and the last one to leave at night. Wow. I am not surprised. And that is, it feels like kind of a, you know, a dying art, you know, a dying breed of real, honest to God, Broadway triple threats, which is fantastic. We were talking backstage about how, you know, you're well into rehearsals. Rehearsals have sort of begun, right? You're three weeks into the rehearsal process. Are you still... discovering new things about the material is there are there changes where what is the rehearsal process looking like in week three well we we all go in with a plan we always have a big plan we do pre-production but the minute you get the actors in front of you you are inspired by these actors and you hear it it's it's different hearing us read it to ourselves all the time and then hearing the real actors read it out loud and it's inspiring and and yes we immediately do changes right away just in we did uh three scenes today and and bob and rick immediately made tweaks and changes and i know um josh had done pre-production on a big finale number but he had robin today working on it and it adjusted so you do go in with a plan for everything but then it always does change it always gets heightened wow yeah it's not as i say it's not the theater is not like writing a novel. Because once you start adding the elements, the personality of the particular performer, the way it has to be blocked, the space you're going to be in, how dance and how music works, it just evolves. And this team is wonderful because we're able to adapt and evolve with the material. And it's funny because the show is so meta. As I said, ultimately, it's a show about the improbable way art is created. And we have completely changed this show from the first draft that we wrote. I would love to hear a little about that because I know there have been previous readings and there was workshops and whatnot and things have obviously changed over time and it is so meta in terms of it's a show about making a musical and you're all making a musical. I also want to know, do you ever draw on your own experiences and your conversations? You know, do you overhear Susan saying something to Josh and then that's in the script the next day? Like what is... There are actually many things that are in the script each new day that happened the day before in rehearsals. and it's It's sort of amusing. It's amusing to us, at least, to see the faces of our colleagues when they go, oh my god, I said this yesterday and it's in the show today. You go into rehearsal thinking... You're as ready as absolutely possible. Unless you're, you know, unless you're, I think, maybe a little bit foolish. You must go in thinking you're absolutely ready, because the minute the actors arrive, it changes and it changes and it changes as it should. And I think maybe, correct me if I'm wrong, but I think it was, maybe it's apocryphal, but I think it was Jerome Robbins who said you... you're never finished, you just run out of time. Because we're constantly changing, constantly changing. There will come a day when Stroh says, we're freezing the show, no more changes. And we'll all be very sad because... probably like five minutes before she said it, we're like, oh, here's how we should end it. And we'll never get to do it until, you know, next year. Until the tour. And I remember when we did Hairspray and then went on the tour. started a year later and I went into rehearsal I had all these other musical ideas that when I was watching it after the show was frozen I was like oh I'd like to add this and so I got to do it on the tour and then they said oh you could have put this into the Broadway show you just needed to call a rehearsal I was like why didn't anyone tell me they didn't tell you wow oh wow I now I'm curious about those changes um wow that is really so in terms of I guess the longest legacy of smash and so many things. I mean, I remember watching watching Megan Hilty, who's on Broadway right now, singing secondhand Baby Grand on the show. And I wonder, again, without giving too much away, how do you decide what you must take from the show, what songs, what moments you want to use in the Broadway show, and how do you decide, okay, that existed in the television show, and we're going to let that exist there? It's really about the music to begin with. uh well they dumped everything on their desk we had a we had a a complete uh song list uh of uh and of course these songs weren't just um on paper they were we had the we had the produced versions we had um we had sheet music charts to follow we had lyric sheets to follow and um so we had a a ton of an embarrassment of riches i think is the expression and um and then as we started to figure a story. Some of the songs advocated for themselves and some of them did not. They're the ones, obviously, that you want to keep. But because we're writing a play about the making of a musical, the songs that you hear are all songs, with perhaps one exception, they're all songs that appear in the musical that these people are making. So the characters in the story of the making of the show don't turn to each other and... burst into song the way they would if this were a musical about a musical but this is sort of a play about a musical so um that's the that's the distinction because a lot of times you're writing a show you're you know the it's the song's going to be fantastic we're really blessed walking into this thing because the songs already existed and they were already fantastic yes but they didn't tell a coherent story Because they were written in service of the TV show. They're diagenic, I believe. They're diagenic. It's a comedy, but I mean... Interesting, maybe, to me. As we were trying to figure out what the opening number would be, and when we wrote this song for the pilot episode of the show, the song that keeps being out there, which is called Let Me Be Your Star, And... We remember that when we first wrote the song, Bob Greenblatt, who was the head of NBC and one of our co-producers, he gave us the great note when we wrote it. It was very about Marilyn singing about what was happening to her, Grauman's Chinese and stuff. And he said, can you take another swipe at the lyrics? And he said, think of how in Don't Rain on My Parade from Funny Girl, how this is a song that Fanny Bryce is singing about how she wants to leave the Ziegfeld Follies and follow Nick Arnstein and marry. him. And yet there's not a single lyric in an entire song, Don't Rain On My Parade, except when she says, hey, Mr. Rahnstein, here I am. That's it. Everything else is just about a person's drive to want to do what they want to do. And so we took another stripe at the lyric, and it was just a great note that Bob gave us. But we had all these other lyrics that we had written at first. And so this idea for the opening is, I'm not, this is not a big spoiler, is that it's a version of Let Me Be Your Star, where we actually... actually get to kind of show the first version that we wrote. And it's also different from that also. But it was great that we got to go into the vault and get all these other lyrics that we had and write some new ones also. But that was fun for us. I'm so excited to see it in a few weeks. I mean, Let Me Be Your Star, that was what, at least, really, I remember watching the pilot of that. I've now seen that song a million times. It's incredible. It is. It's earworm-y. It's a perfect I Want song in terms of establishing these two women just wanting to be Marilyn, wanting to be that star. I really, to hear it interpolated and sort of changed to fit a group number, that... That's really exciting and I have to imagine kind of hard because that's been in the can for, you know, 12 years. You know, that's been performed a certain way specifically for over a decade. So when that sort of comes across your desk, is it an exciting thing or is it sort of a, oh well, I guess, you know, gotta dust off the cobwebs and... I don't know. Just what I was saying, it's great that in the show you're going to get to see the evolution of the song in sort of the same way of what really happens. So it'll be fun, I think, for the audience to see how a song can be deconstructed and built again. For example, that song is now done. We opened the show as an uptempo, and Josh has gotten to choreograph a whole new giant opening number. So the show starts. starts with that song done in a way people haven't heard before. And I think that's going to be very interesting for the fans and for new folks that are going to just love it. But also it's just the kind of choreography and seeing Marilyn Monroe in the middle of it all. It's a fantastic opener. And it is that song, but now treated in a different way. This right off the bat, this is not the smash that you saw. This is this. We keep saying this is this fan fiction. It's like a different spin on a different take on this material. So and and and the opening number is a great way to let the audience know that that's what we've set our cap on. And you know, I was always sad that the most popular song from the TV series, I never got to choreograph to. And now I finally get to choreograph to it now. Goodness, that is, oh god, I can't wait, I can't wait to see it. I will, I do want to know, obviously it's a, you know, this is not your grandmother's smash, you know, this is a new thing that we're making. How many Easter eggs are there? Are there little bits of fan service for the diehard cult fans? Or should we let go of that? No, there are a few. There are a few Easter eggs. There are Easter eggs for... Smash fans, there are Easter eggs for Broadway fans, there are Easter eggs for Strowman fans, there are Easter eggs for Shaman and Whitman fans. I'm not sure there are Easter eggs for Josh, except that every number is by you. Every number. There's even a couple of Easter eggs for a project that Bob is doing. I figured you would make that face. It's hilarious to me. It won't be hilarious to anybody else. I think the way the guys have written how the song come in is the constant Easter egg. So you're going to hear songs that you know from the show, but, oh, that's interesting how they're using that there. I think those are chock full of eggs. Eggs are so expensive now, though. They're supposed to be. They're not supposed to be, actually. So what they tell us, wow. Something that I'm curious to see is if Smash, if this new iteration pushes forward, and it's happening right now. It's in conversation with things, people, real people that exist in the theater community that are names that we recognize shows that we recognize there are references and whatnot. Do you ever get nervous about sort of referencing things that are happening right now and real people or people that, you know. used to be with us in the you know the things about this musical most time when we're doing a musical where we are in another decade or you know we're in the 20s we're in the 30s or the 40s or the 50s or the 60s most musicals take place at another time But this, we are in contemporary times. So it is a group of creatives trying to put on a musical in contemporary times. Although we get to go back when we're showing the musical numbers about a show about Marilyn Monroe. But everything else is taking place now. So because of that, Bob and Rick have put in some moments that people today would understand about other characters in the show. Other folks that they talk about are art. contemporary? It's so contemporary that we had a line that said, that describes the whole enterprise as a $20 million house of cards. And we realized we had to raise the price. So we say now, it's a $28 million house of cards. Which is closer to the budget of a typical position. Those eggs are so expensive. Comes back to the eggs. Wow. I do. I just want to, excuse me, Chris. I just want to underscore what Stroh said. That, you know, you think about 42nd Street. You know, it's a period story. You think about, you know, I don't know, Kiss Me, Kate. You know, it's set at a particular time. You think about Dreamgirls, a backstage story, but set in a particular time. when a chorus line opened for example I remember the program famously said, the place, a theater, the time, now. Because in 1975, they were playing dancers auditioning for a show in 1975. As the show ran and ran and ran, eventually it said, the place, a theater, the time, 1975. What we're doing instead is we're rewriting the script every day to make sure that it's taking place now and um and it is it is it is more challenging it's more challenging to do a show because you're no longer, there's no under the radar work that you can do anymore because of this little thing called the internet and social media. And so that affects how we do what we do. The art of making art is no longer, you know, locking yourself away in a hotel room and, you know, in Boston or Philly or, you know, the Schubert Theater in New Haven and hoping that nobody knows what you're doing until you get to New York. Now before you even show up for the first day of rehearsal, everybody already knows what it is that you're doing. you're doing and who's doing it and what they said and what they're thinking and what they're going to do tomorrow so um that's um a fascinating element that's part of our story i think that makes this different from your other backstage musicals it's because the show even comments we we have social media moments in the show and so so the show comments on how social media can change the perception of a show so and how it has an effect in today's times. In fact, in that image there that you're looking at, there are Easter eggs in that image in the sort of Sergeant Pepper's milieu, but there are people, there are influencers and social media people and contemporary media people and press people peppered in that crowd because You know, this is a show that's happening now. The only person there who's not really there is the person with her back to the camera. You should also mention... Nick D'Alella there from New York Wild. Yeah, there is. Anna Winters there. Yeah. Somebody we haven't mentioned is that the sort of profoundly gay gentleman there pulling his eyes back, which is Brooks Ashmanskis. I hope I'm pronouncing that name correctly. He is the funniest man on Broadway. I've worked with him many times. I love him so much. And he is the comic engine of the piece. So, I mean, his name just hasn't come up yet. The thing is, too, different from the television show, it was more of a melodrama or soap opera. And this is a pure on comedy. I mean, it is comedy. Well, I mean, that's sort of perfect, given that it's a comedy, a backstage Broadway comedy. Given the producers, you have a lot of experience helming those. Is there any similarity? Did you pull from that experience at all? Is there any sort of... Yes, I did the show called The Producers. Applause, whole for your applause. That is all about backstage. You see how to become a producer through the eyes of Leo Bloom. And so it is like that. I've been very lucky to have done a lot of comedies and know a lot of comics. And so the idea of being able to work with this team who everyone up here are funny people. It's been a dream, actually. At least these three weeks. I guess there's a couple. There's a little more. There's a little more to go. I'm so taken by what you... Given, you know, that you all have such storied histories in musical theater, I mean, Drowsy Chaperone, Jersey Boys, Hairspray, The Producers, I could keep going, I could keep going. Has your approach to making art changed with the advent of social media and with what, you know, Rick, you were just saying, this, you know, the constant eye of people always peering in potentially through the internet? Or do you still get up and write a song just like you wrote Good Morning Baltimore? I want to retire. I want to retire. It's very hard. It's very hard. I don't think the process changes. We still write a song like the way we would have written Good Morning, Baltimore. That's not changed. So that's kind of sacred. So that hasn't changed. You just don't have the safety of being hidden away. Or, you know, it used to be that you could go out of town and the Times would not review you. You would have a chance to sort of develop a show. You know, in a little bit of a sanctuary, but that's with social media, it's not the case anymore for two reasons. First of all, social media writes about your show, about previews, about rehearsal, about everything, so it's all out there. But also... In the case of The Times, they had to compensate for their lack of power by reviewing shows out of town now because their voice is not the single voice anymore. There's multiple voices. And the essence of social media is. conflict, right? So you have somebody anonymously saying, you know, the world is flat, you know, and somebody saying, no, that's ridiculous. The earth is round. And then you have team round and team flat. And they fight with each other on the internet. And there's your little show in the middle trying to, you know, like a little chick hatchling, you know, trying to like, you know, get some food and some air and some water. And there's people yelling and screaming about it outside the building. That may not affect the songwriting process, but it certainly affects the temperature in the room when the audience comes into the theater. If there's people picketing outside because they don't like who's in the show or they've heard something about something somebody said or they're boycotting for some other particular reason and it's nothing that has to do with the show, but it... does have to do with the presentation of the show and the life of the show. What do you all hope people take from... This iteration of Smash, like why Smash now? It's so interesting to hear that Steven Spielberg, he thought, or Robert Greenlight will just make a musical every year and send it to Broadway. It takes, you know, a decade to ten years to get it off its ground, and if you're thinking about it, you know, Smash the TV show happened about 13 years ago, so that's sort of the life cycle of a musical. It sort of feels like great timing, but why Smash now, and what do you hope audiences take away from this production? Well, I hope their sides hurt at the end of it. That's what I hope. Well, it's certainly for what's happening in the world, if you will, right now, to be entertained and to laugh. And this show brings you that. It not only entertains and it's not only going to make you laugh, but it's going to show you how... a musical is put on, how a creative team will do a number and then they'll come back and they'll fight about the number in the stage manager's office and then they'll do another number and they'll come back and they'll fight about it again. It's the kind of, it's artists, there's no other art form like a musical. That collaboration of music and book and dance and direction and comedy and lights and costumes and set. It is an amazing thing that comes together. All these artists come to try to make art out of every single page in the script. There's no other art form like it. Not only are they going to be entertained, they're going to laugh, but they're going to find out how to make a musical. And when it goes wrong, as I think everyone on the stage has had, you know, it's when all these people start to see a different show. And that's when the problems start. If you all, it has to be a singular vision from everyone or else it doesn't work. That's why it is truly the most collaborative. And that's kind of a kernel of what happens in our show. And it's, I mean, it's, again, the essence of our show is a little glimpse behind the curtain. And there's a speech that Wonderful Brooks has where he says, people, you know, this is how it always, when things are going really badly, he says, this is how it works. You know, the audience is going to come tonight. They're going to see a show that works with a star who's fabulous. And they're not going to have any idea about the little drama that's been going on backstage. And so that's what our show is, the little drama that's been going on backstage, except it's a farce. Wow, I would be a bad journalist if I didn't ask, has there been any little drama that's gone backstage? No. Absolutely not. What a ridiculous question. Good answer, that's on the record, that's a good answer. Well, I guess, speaking of a little drama, I know that we have one more number from the show, so I'll throw it over to you. Bobby, why don't you set up? this next number. Yes, and in order to do this, we do have to give away the major plot point of the show, which is Ivy Lynn is an actress. Yeah, please don't repeat this. She's an actress who's hired to play the notoriously problematic and difficult actress Marilyn Monroe. And she gets so deep into the role that she actually becomes Marilyn and becomes horribly problematic and difficult. That's basically... Well, kind of like Daniel Day-Lewis, but really goes in deep. Yes. So this, Rick, why don't you explain? Oh, the number you're about to see represents a scene where, as if by wizardry, the curtain will rise and the entire orchestra will be on stage, tuning up in that wonderful sort of cacophonous sound of an orchestra tuning that we've all heard. And it's the very special day in the... life of rehearsal of a show. It's called the Sitzprobe. Sitzprobe, a German word, which for some reason we use in the theater, meaning the day, the first time the full orchestra plays the score for the cast and the crew. And so it's a very wonderful experience because no matter how much trouble you're in, when you hear an orchestra play the score, it's glorious and you think everything's going to be wonderful and it's going to be fantastic because ivy is so has has dived so deep into maryland and method acting that she has started to sort of osmosis into maryland um the decision is made by the director the wonderful brooks ashmascus to um to be taken away to do a publicity day so she will be missing the sits probe because This is a way. for everyone to have a happy, glorious experience and not deal with problematic Marilyn. And so the song, the new finale, is the first song that's going to be done at the Sitzprobe. The orchestra opens to number 20 in the score, and they begin to play. It's a full orchestra, which you will imagine, with the magnificent Mark Shaman at the keyboard of the piano, a full orchestra, and Marilyn's understudy. and Karen singing this song for the first time with an orchestra because Ivy's not there to do it. Wow. Alright, so ladies and gentlemen, Caroline Bowman is coming out as part of Carrie. They thought they could dispose of me. They tried to make me small. I suffered each indignity, but now rise above it all. Yes, the price I paid was all I had, but at last I found release. And if something good can come from bad, the past can rest in peace. So if you see someone's hurt and in need of a hand, Don't forget me. Or hear a melody crying from some baby grand. Well, don't forget me. When you sing happy birthday to someone you love or see diamonds that never come free, please say that you won't. I pray that you don't forget me. There are some in this world who have strength of their own, Never broken or in need of repair but there are some more to shine who can't do it alone so protect them and take special care take care don't forget me please take care What is this? This is what's happening here. Our director is trying to take away my zits probe to punish me, I guess. Just like Billy Wilder did on the seven-year itch. He wouldn't let me have a cake on my birthday. It's just petty. I am not going to be treated like that ever again. From the bridge! There are some in this world who have strength of their own. Never broken or in need of repair. But there are some born to shine who can't do it alone. So protect them and take special care. Take care. And don't forget me. Please take care. forget me when you look to the heavens with someone you love and a light shining bright from afar hope you see my face there And then offer a prayer. And please let me be. Let me be. Let's go. Thank you all so much for joining us. If that doesn't make you want to see the show, I don't know what will, because that is incredible. Just please join me in thanking this incredible panel of creatives. Bob, Rick, Susan, Josh, Scott, and Mark. And get your tickets to see Smash, because it is one hell of a show. Thank you so much.

What is better than the first day of rehearsal for a Broadway show? Nothing! We're thrilled to be here this morning with all of you.

It really does take a village, right? The reveal of the key art. This is Smash. Everybody you see here today are the best of Broadway.

Our creative team, the cast and crew, our designers, our agencies and management company. We have the best of the best. The best of the best. This is so exciting. This show is fabulous, the book is fabulous, the music is fabulous.

Everybody in this room is so wonderful and so funny and so talented. It's going to be great. It's going to be great. In these times, nobody wants to see a depressing show. So grateful to finally be bringing laughter and joy of Broadway into the show.

We are a star! Born to be a star! Hello and welcome.

My name is Chris Murphy and I'm a staff writer at Vanity Fair and I am really thrilled to be moderating this discussion and I see we don't we all have chairs I wanted to make sure okay that's good. I am thrilled to be moderating this discussion with the creative team behind Smash. I have to say I was trying to play cool backstage and not fangirl too much but this is really huge for me. as a former theater kid to be talking to all these people. I think we got to, you know, I know you just heard the introduction, but just so everyone knows who we're talking to, we've got Susan Stroman, the director.

Hey, hey, hey. We've got Josh Burgos, the choreographer. Rick Ellis, book writer.

Bob Martin, also co-book writer. Mark Shaman, composer and co-lyricist. Yeah. And Scott Whitman, co-lyricist as well.

Now, I feel like, to kick it off, obviously, we've got an incredible show that's coming, but I want to go all the way back to the source material, which is, of course, the NBC cult hit show, Smash, that I remember exactly where I was when I watched the first episode after the Super Bowl in 2012, and I would love to know... And I guess it would make most sense to start with Mark and Scott, as you wrote the incredible, incredible songs for the series. What were your relationships with to the television show?

Because you weren't all involved with the show in its original run. But I'll kick it off. Well, the phone rang one day, and it was Steven Spielberg. How did you get this number? and Neil Maron and Craig Zayden who we had known because we wrote Hairspray and they produced the Hairspray movie.

And we had done a lot of work with them. And they said, we want to do a TV series about the creation of a Broadway musical. And we would follow the whole trajectory from page to stage in one year.

And then that show would open up on Broadway. Oh, wow, that'll be fun. We can write a new Broadway show every year. Sounds really easy.

Of course that didn't happen. So we did two seasons, and we wrote... The only thing we ever all agreed on, on the TV series, was what the musical should be. And that was Marilyn, because you could sort of drop in and out of her story. Everyone kind of had a vague memory of what her life was.

It was... It reflected the show business and the struggles that these two characters, the two ladies in the story, were going through. So that seemed natural. So we wrote a song almost every week.

Josh choreographed every week. We would write a song on a Monday, teach it to the girls on Tuesday. They would record it on Wednesday, stage it on Thursday, and film it on Friday. Wow.

It was like being in MGM in the 1950s. And then over time, we always thought, I wonder if this would ever work on stage. And then these two gentlemen, Bob Martin and Rick Ellis, came into our lives, as did Susan Stroman, and we decided they had come up with a concept for it.

So that's where we are today. I would love to know, so for Bob and Mark, I'm so sorry, Bob and Rick, did you watch the show when it was initially on? Were you were you smash watchers or?

I was familiar with it. Yes. They were hate watchers.

I saw the I was lucky enough to I too so you were in it I I I was in it but I was cut because you were I was too I I apparently I improvised a scene um no I at the time that they were shooting I think I think maybe the last episode of the first season, I was rehearsing a play called Peter and the Starcatcher, which was starring Christian Borle, who was starring in Smash. And Bernie Telsey, who did the casting for Smash, the television series, is somebody that we all have come to know over the years. And I called him and I said, is there some way that I could go and really ruin Christian's day by sitting next to him in the makeup chair at 5.30 in the morning and he'll walk in really tired and it'll be me. And so he said, yeah, yeah, you'll come.

And so I took a ferry to Staten Island, I think, and was very rude in front of Christian and Deborah Messing who were playing the two writers at the time. watching the first public performance of the show Bombshell, and in front of them were two obnoxious people talking about not liking the show very much, and they were the writers and they were hearing it. And apparently I was so realistic that it got cut. Wow.

But I still get a 43-cent check every year from NBC. That's not bad. Susan, did you have a walk-on role on Smash as well or no?

No, I never. My name was on Smash, I think, for something. They used my name. But no, but I did watch it.

I loved it. I watched it. I wouldn't miss it.

I loved it. I love that. I would love to know, because Smash, it lasted two seasons, sort of a comet. It burned really brightly. It did not last that long.

When did you realize, I guess this is, again, for Mark and Scott, that Smash's legacy might be longer than those two seasons on television, that it might endure past its run? Well, we did a concert like five years after this show, so that was sort of five years, five or six years ago. We did a one-night concert of all the songs that we wrote for Bombshell, the musical, at the Minskoff. Minskoff.

It was for the Actors Fund. We raised a lot of money. One woman told me she had sold her car to buy a ticket. Wow.

And that was spectacular. Scott and I felt like the Beatles for one night. Every single time a song started.

just went insane and and so people kept coming to us about you know trying to i mean neil maron and bob greenblatt our producers but they kept trying to figure out how to put on bombshell the maryland musical that we were creating but it as soon as we started writing for the tv show It became apparent that the songs that we were writing needed to mirror what the characters on Smash were going through and find ways that Marilyn's life mirrored that. So the songs weren't exactly like what you would write for... for a book musical about Marilyn Monroe. Not to mention we were writing these neck-bursting showstoppers for these ladies to sing once a week.

And if one woman ever tried to sing them all in one night, she, like Marilyn Monroe, would die at the end. at the end. Someone even pitched this one idea about it would start in an insane asylum. Oh yes, it did. It was an insane asylum and it was kind of like Kiss of the Spider Woman.

She was in an insane asylum and she thought she was Marilyn Monroe. So finally, finally these two guys came along and wanted to take another look at like what the TV show was like, people putting on a musical, but what they have brought to it besides they've just brought a lot of humor, a lot of heart and humor because on the TV show, they wanted it to be like a soap opera. And we kept saying, but no matter what happens on a musical, you'll hear laughter coming from that room.

Even if people are fighting, you'll still hear people having a great time. And so these two guys have brought that into it. And now we have a real comedy.

Right. Most people here have probably seen Noises Off, yes, or that That movie, The Bandwagon with Fred Astaire. So those are kind of the vibe we were going for.

Wow. Okay. That's very exciting.

I would love to ask Josh, you were on the show and choreographed for the show. Yes. And now are part of the creative team. What has that transition like been for you? Well, I think, you know, the biggest thing for me, as far as choreographing the TV series and then now choreographing the Broadway show, is the basic fundamental difference between film and live theater, where with film, the camera does so much of the work for you.

It tells you, the audience, what you need to look at, right? All those shots gives you the exact story, the clarity of what you need to follow in a big musical number. When you're choreographing for the stage, then I have to make sure that I'm designing these production numbers so that you still know what story to follow, which characters to look at, so that the numbers make sense and the story makes sense and moves forward.

So I think that's the biggest difference for me, is making sure that I'm designing these numbers so that they can be viewed by a live audience and still make sense and still be beautiful and not with the help of the camera. okay that that makes a lot of sense and i it's interesting because susan you've never not choreographed a show that you've directed you always have pulled double duty this is your first time handing over the reins to someone else how did you both navigate that it's going very well that's good that's good it's going very well no i i did get the call uh to ask if i would be interested in directing and not choreographing and at the time I said oh I don't I don't think so unless it was some extraordinary situation and then there was silence and I said well why are you asking me this question like that and they said well we want you to direct smash but we would love Josh to choreograph it and I had made such a fuss over him for the tv choreography and uh when he was doing it on tv I said oh thank god they got a choreographer that understands this and so the idea that we would be together on this piece. It just thrilled me.

So I said, well, let me have dinner with him and let's see how we do. And of course, we met up and chatted about how we would navigate this. And it's been wonderful. And he's an exceptional choreographer and a great collaborator.

So it's been fantastic. It's been fantastic. I will say that after our reading, before Susan was on board, we were standing around in a circle.

And I think it was Steven Spielberg who said, you know... We should talk to Susan Stroman about directing and I thought there goes my job Yeah, I just want to ask you what it's it like you when you're in the room Choreographing and Susan Stroman is beyond you and for me it would be like if Leonard Bernstein was back there I was sweaty for a while. I was sweaty at first, but now we you know, we really built this great collaboration and we you know it's been so fun and we were so supportive of each other and it's been very nice and Mark and Mark and I have been trying dying to work with Stroman for many many years we've known each other for a long time so we're very happy about that we would see each other in in the bars, the local bars.

So finally we're in a rehearsal room together. Ah, the watering holes. Well, I love that because so much of Smash is about the making of a musical, right?

It's about the making of Bombshell. But on the series, you know, it's sort of about Karen and Ivy and who's going to be Marilyn, and that's the overarching storyline. But with the Broadway play, it seems that you've broken up the story, broken open the story in a different way.

So can you walk through or let us in to what the new sort of... Storyline or plot might entail for this version of smash on stage. Well, we'd rather not No, we've actually talked about how much of the story do we give away?

But but but yes just in ins to begin with a more general statement We Rick and I had been working on a bunch of musicals when we I became aware of this music and how wonderful it was. And because we had been writing musicals, we were filled with anger. And we thought this would be a way to process all of that.

a lot of money on therapy. And we talked, we actually said exactly that to Mark and Scott as well. This would be a wonderful way for you to rid yourself of the burden of what it's like to create art at some point. And really, that's what this story is.

It's about the improbable way that art is created. And in this case, it's musical. The writers and the creative team within our show set out to do one thing.

And because of a series of farcical events, they end up with a completely different show. Now, in terms of the story, well, there is an Ivy Lynn. There is a Karen.

That's about it. You know, we... Because there's a fan base, this rabid fan base from the cult.

um, crowd that follows the show and has followed it on Netflix or wherever it's on now, um, we, we, we, we wanted to, we, we, we wanted to keep, we wanted to keep two characters, but as really as just a way to lead the audience down the garden path, because what we've, um, what we pitched the guys and Stroh, um, is more of a, like a fan fiction of, of people who like us watched the TV show and thought, well, you know, I mean, two people competing for the same part, you know, like first day rehearsal somebody knows who's playing the part. So we decided to, we're like, okay, so we'll take a little bit and then we'll invent something that is more true to our experience as musical theater writers and just lean into it a little bit because, you know, the thing that makes something really funny sometimes is something that is really, really terrible, but you just lean into it a little bit, and it seems so crazy that you laugh. So we've invented certain situations that, of course, we mustn't tell you about because they'd have to kill us then. But we've invented, it's a farce that has elements of the original in it. And, you know, one of the sort of principles of adaptation is to create something that exists in parallel to the original.

And so out of curiosity, how many people here saw the TV series? That's exactly what I thought. Quite a few people. Okay, okay.

Well, you're going to be terribly disappointed. No, I don't think you will. I think you're going to be really excited because you're going to see this completely... Why didn't they do that?

It's like in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. universe, how there's the multiverse, how like all those different Spider-Men all exist in different whatever, and then how they all came together in that one. This is the multiverse version of Smash. This is the comedy version. The multiverse version that could be performed eight times a week too, you know, that's the thing.

You have, you know, Mark alluded earlier to the idea of these amazing songs. I mean, that's the other thing. That's the other thing, you know, we're book writers, So we live and die on the strength of what... Other people do, which is the songs. Not die, not die.

Well, I mean, speak for yourself. I've died a few times. You know, it's like... Get blamed if it goes south. Yes, me too.

But the idea of making something that is a fan fiction of Smash that can also be performed eight times a week is a particular challenge. And the insanity of those things... It's a little bit like being in a sailboat. Imagine you're in a sailboat and you're starting here.

And then I'm sailing over to those people all over there. And it's a sailboat because it doesn't have an engine. So you think, okay, here's the story we're going to tell.

We're going to go from here to there. And then you start sailing and then the wind changes and suddenly, uh-oh, now we're going that way. So you tack. Some people say tacked, but that's the wrong word. It's tack.

You tack, and you tack a little bit too strongly, and now suddenly you're going over that way, and then the wind dies, and then by then you're sort of exhausted, and you think, well, that looks pretty good. And so, and that's what it's like to make a musical. Comprehensive. This is another informal poll.

How many people were confused by that metaphor? I got seasick. Well, I feel like that is a great transition to seeing what the sailboat looks like, and we're going to see a couple performances tonight.

So I'm going to throw it over. Thank you very much. I'll throw it over to Susan.

Let's turn it over to Scott and Mark about setting up this song, Secondhand White Baby Grand. Okay, so this first song, there's a character in the show, Tracy, who's the lyricist and the book writer. And then there's Ivy Lynn, who plays Marilyn.

She's a Broadway star already. Tracy decides that she wants to maybe add some more depth. In the beginning, they decided they were going to do a celebration of Marilyn's life because no one wants to see a depressing show. So, but Tracy decides maybe we can put a little more depth into this show, and she pitches this song to the character of Ivy. in hopes that she can get it into the show.

The song is called Secondhand White Baby Grand, and it's actually based on, we wrote it based on a true story from Marilyn Monroe's life. She had a very crazy mother, and they had a white baby grand piano when she was a child, and she was sort of shuttled to foster home to foster home, and she spent her whole life trying to find that piano again, and And she did eventually find the piano, and eventually it ended up in, of all places, Mariah Carey's house. So the song is about this piano and about Tracy pitching the song to Marilyn.

Yes, so here is Krista Rodriguez and Robin Hurter as stars of Sniper. It was out of tune, but still I learned to play And with each note we both would smile Forgetting who we are And all the pain would simply fly away Something secondhand and broken Still can make a pretty sound Even if it doesn't have a place to live All the words were left unspoken When my mama came around But that secondhand white baby grand Still had something beautiful to give Through many years the music had to roll Until we found a way to make it work to find a home. So now I wake up every day and see her standing there just waiting for a part to compose.

And I wish my mother still could hear that sound beyond compare. I'll play her song till everybody knows That something second-hand Still can make a pretty sound Don't we all deserve a family room? To live, oh the words can't stay unspoken Until everyone has found that Secondhand white baby bread That still has something beautiful To give, I still have something beautiful to give Unbelievable I'd just like to say something quickly about, Krista was on the TV show and we never got to write a song for her, so we're overjoyed that she's singing.

Finally, she used to sing in the other show. but she's finally singing one of ours so i'm very very happy about that yeah oh that was absolutely oh so amazing and i have to i have to know how do you assemble a cast to take on you know such incredible material How did you land on the cast that you've assembled for this show? Well, we had auditions for a very long time. But I have to say, these two gals, Krista, right away we thought it would be lovely to have her be part of this. And then Robin Herter, we also knew, had to play Marilyn Monroe.

So Robin came in and we explored her vocally and had her read for us. But she nailed it every time. So. It was pretty much from day one, these two gals that you just saw.

And one thing that we don't get to see here tonight, Robin Hurter is one of the best dancers on Broadway right now. So, yeah. She's a true triple threat.

I was thinking that just now. If you knew what they were just doing today, all day at rehearsal, you wouldn't even believe that they're standing. I mean, and what Robin, I mean, oh, my God. Robin Robin is definitely in the world of Chita Rivera and Gwen Verdon. She is that triple threat professional.

performer, singer, dancer, actor, funny. She's the first in warming up in the morning and the last one to leave at night. Wow. I am not surprised.

And that is, it feels like kind of a, you know, a dying art, you know, a dying breed of real, honest to God, Broadway triple threats, which is fantastic. We were talking backstage about how, you know, you're well into rehearsals. Rehearsals have sort of begun, right?

You're three weeks into the rehearsal process. Are you still... discovering new things about the material is there are there changes where what is the rehearsal process looking like in week three well we we all go in with a plan we always have a big plan we do pre-production but the minute you get the actors in front of you you are inspired by these actors and you hear it it's it's different hearing us read it to ourselves all the time and then hearing the real actors read it out loud and it's inspiring and and yes we immediately do changes right away just in we did uh three scenes today and and bob and rick immediately made tweaks and changes and i know um josh had done pre-production on a big finale number but he had robin today working on it and it adjusted so you do go in with a plan for everything but then it always does change it always gets heightened wow yeah it's not as i say it's not the theater is not like writing a novel. Because once you start adding the elements, the personality of the particular performer, the way it has to be blocked, the space you're going to be in, how dance and how music works, it just evolves.

And this team is wonderful because we're able to adapt and evolve with the material. And it's funny because the show is so meta. As I said, ultimately, it's a show about the improbable way art is created. And we have completely changed this show from the first draft that we wrote. I would love to hear a little about that because I know there have been previous readings and there was workshops and whatnot and things have obviously changed over time and it is so meta in terms of it's a show about making a musical and you're all making a musical.

I also want to know, do you ever draw on your own experiences and your conversations? You know, do you overhear Susan saying something to Josh and then that's in the script the next day? Like what is... There are actually many things that are in the script each new day that happened the day before in rehearsals. and it's It's sort of amusing.

It's amusing to us, at least, to see the faces of our colleagues when they go, oh my god, I said this yesterday and it's in the show today. You go into rehearsal thinking... You're as ready as absolutely possible. Unless you're, you know, unless you're, I think, maybe a little bit foolish.

You must go in thinking you're absolutely ready, because the minute the actors arrive, it changes and it changes and it changes as it should. And I think maybe, correct me if I'm wrong, but I think it was, maybe it's apocryphal, but I think it was Jerome Robbins who said you... you're never finished, you just run out of time. Because we're constantly changing, constantly changing.

There will come a day when Stroh says, we're freezing the show, no more changes. And we'll all be very sad because... probably like five minutes before she said it, we're like, oh, here's how we should end it. And we'll never get to do it until, you know, next year.

Until the tour. And I remember when we did Hairspray and then went on the tour. started a year later and I went into rehearsal I had all these other musical ideas that when I was watching it after the show was frozen I was like oh I'd like to add this and so I got to do it on the tour and then they said oh you could have put this into the Broadway show you just needed to call a rehearsal I was like why didn't anyone tell me they didn't tell you wow oh wow I now I'm curious about those changes um wow that is really so in terms of I guess the longest legacy of smash and so many things. I mean, I remember watching watching Megan Hilty, who's on Broadway right now, singing secondhand Baby Grand on the show.

And I wonder, again, without giving too much away, how do you decide what you must take from the show, what songs, what moments you want to use in the Broadway show, and how do you decide, okay, that existed in the television show, and we're going to let that exist there? It's really about the music to begin with. uh well they dumped everything on their desk we had a we had a a complete uh song list uh of uh and of course these songs weren't just um on paper they were we had the we had the produced versions we had um we had sheet music charts to follow we had lyric sheets to follow and um so we had a a ton of an embarrassment of riches i think is the expression and um and then as we started to figure a story.

Some of the songs advocated for themselves and some of them did not. They're the ones, obviously, that you want to keep. But because we're writing a play about the making of a musical, the songs that you hear are all songs, with perhaps one exception, they're all songs that appear in the musical that these people are making.

So the characters in the story of the making of the show don't turn to each other and... burst into song the way they would if this were a musical about a musical but this is sort of a play about a musical so um that's the that's the distinction because a lot of times you're writing a show you're you know the it's the song's going to be fantastic we're really blessed walking into this thing because the songs already existed and they were already fantastic yes but they didn't tell a coherent story Because they were written in service of the TV show. They're diagenic, I believe.

They're diagenic. It's a comedy, but I mean... Interesting, maybe, to me. As we were trying to figure out what the opening number would be, and when we wrote this song for the pilot episode of the show, the song that keeps being out there, which is called Let Me Be Your Star, And... We remember that when we first wrote the song, Bob Greenblatt, who was the head of NBC and one of our co-producers, he gave us the great note when we wrote it.

It was very about Marilyn singing about what was happening to her, Grauman's Chinese and stuff. And he said, can you take another swipe at the lyrics? And he said, think of how in Don't Rain on My Parade from Funny Girl, how this is a song that Fanny Bryce is singing about how she wants to leave the Ziegfeld Follies and follow Nick Arnstein and marry.

him. And yet there's not a single lyric in an entire song, Don't Rain On My Parade, except when she says, hey, Mr. Rahnstein, here I am. That's it.

Everything else is just about a person's drive to want to do what they want to do. And so we took another stripe at the lyric, and it was just a great note that Bob gave us. But we had all these other lyrics that we had written at first. And so this idea for the opening is, I'm not, this is not a big spoiler, is that it's a version of Let Me Be Your Star, where we actually...

actually get to kind of show the first version that we wrote. And it's also different from that also. But it was great that we got to go into the vault and get all these other lyrics that we had and write some new ones also.

But that was fun for us. I'm so excited to see it in a few weeks. I mean, Let Me Be Your Star, that was what, at least, really, I remember watching the pilot of that. I've now seen that song a million times.

It's incredible. It is. It's earworm-y.

It's a perfect I Want song in terms of establishing these two women just wanting to be Marilyn, wanting to be that star. I really, to hear it interpolated and sort of changed to fit a group number, that... That's really exciting and I have to imagine kind of hard because that's been in the can for, you know, 12 years. You know, that's been performed a certain way specifically for over a decade. So when that sort of comes across your desk, is it an exciting thing or is it sort of a, oh well, I guess, you know, gotta dust off the cobwebs and...

I don't know. Just what I was saying, it's great that in the show you're going to get to see the evolution of the song in sort of the same way of what really happens. So it'll be fun, I think, for the audience to see how a song can be deconstructed and built again. For example, that song is now done. We opened the show as an uptempo, and Josh has gotten to choreograph a whole new giant opening number.

So the show starts. starts with that song done in a way people haven't heard before. And I think that's going to be very interesting for the fans and for new folks that are going to just love it.

But also it's just the kind of choreography and seeing Marilyn Monroe in the middle of it all. It's a fantastic opener. And it is that song, but now treated in a different way. This right off the bat, this is not the smash that you saw.

This is this. We keep saying this is this fan fiction. It's like a different spin on a different take on this material.

So and and and the opening number is a great way to let the audience know that that's what we've set our cap on. And you know, I was always sad that the most popular song from the TV series, I never got to choreograph to. And now I finally get to choreograph to it now. Goodness, that is, oh god, I can't wait, I can't wait to see it. I will, I do want to know, obviously it's a, you know, this is not your grandmother's smash, you know, this is a new thing that we're making.

How many Easter eggs are there? Are there little bits of fan service for the diehard cult fans? Or should we let go of that? No, there are a few.

There are a few Easter eggs. There are Easter eggs for... Smash fans, there are Easter eggs for Broadway fans, there are Easter eggs for Strowman fans, there are Easter eggs for Shaman and Whitman fans.

I'm not sure there are Easter eggs for Josh, except that every number is by you. Every number. There's even a couple of Easter eggs for a project that Bob is doing.

I figured you would make that face. It's hilarious to me. It won't be hilarious to anybody else. I think the way the guys have written how the song come in is the constant Easter egg. So you're going to hear songs that you know from the show, but, oh, that's interesting how they're using that there.

I think those are chock full of eggs. Eggs are so expensive now, though. They're supposed to be. They're not supposed to be, actually.

So what they tell us, wow. Something that I'm curious to see is if Smash, if this new iteration pushes forward, and it's happening right now. It's in conversation with things, people, real people that exist in the theater community that are names that we recognize shows that we recognize there are references and whatnot. Do you ever get nervous about sort of referencing things that are happening right now and real people or people that, you know.

used to be with us in the you know the things about this musical most time when we're doing a musical where we are in another decade or you know we're in the 20s we're in the 30s or the 40s or the 50s or the 60s most musicals take place at another time But this, we are in contemporary times. So it is a group of creatives trying to put on a musical in contemporary times. Although we get to go back when we're showing the musical numbers about a show about Marilyn Monroe.

But everything else is taking place now. So because of that, Bob and Rick have put in some moments that people today would understand about other characters in the show. Other folks that they talk about are art. contemporary? It's so contemporary that we had a line that said, that describes the whole enterprise as a $20 million house of cards.

And we realized we had to raise the price. So we say now, it's a $28 million house of cards. Which is closer to the budget of a typical position. Those eggs are so expensive.

Comes back to the eggs. Wow. I do.

I just want to, excuse me, Chris. I just want to underscore what Stroh said. That, you know, you think about 42nd Street.

You know, it's a period story. You think about, you know, I don't know, Kiss Me, Kate. You know, it's set at a particular time. You think about Dreamgirls, a backstage story, but set in a particular time.

when a chorus line opened for example I remember the program famously said, the place, a theater, the time, now. Because in 1975, they were playing dancers auditioning for a show in 1975. As the show ran and ran and ran, eventually it said, the place, a theater, the time, 1975. What we're doing instead is we're rewriting the script every day to make sure that it's taking place now and um and it is it is it is more challenging it's more challenging to do a show because you're no longer, there's no under the radar work that you can do anymore because of this little thing called the internet and social media. And so that affects how we do what we do. The art of making art is no longer, you know, locking yourself away in a hotel room and, you know, in Boston or Philly or, you know, the Schubert Theater in New Haven and hoping that nobody knows what you're doing until you get to New York.

Now before you even show up for the first day of rehearsal, everybody already knows what it is that you're doing. you're doing and who's doing it and what they said and what they're thinking and what they're going to do tomorrow so um that's um a fascinating element that's part of our story i think that makes this different from your other backstage musicals it's because the show even comments we we have social media moments in the show and so so the show comments on how social media can change the perception of a show so and how it has an effect in today's times. In fact, in that image there that you're looking at, there are Easter eggs in that image in the sort of Sergeant Pepper's milieu, but there are people, there are influencers and social media people and contemporary media people and press people peppered in that crowd because You know, this is a show that's happening now.

The only person there who's not really there is the person with her back to the camera. You should also mention... Nick D'Alella there from New York Wild.

Yeah, there is. Anna Winters there. Yeah. Somebody we haven't mentioned is that the sort of profoundly gay gentleman there pulling his eyes back, which is Brooks Ashmanskis.

I hope I'm pronouncing that name correctly. He is the funniest man on Broadway. I've worked with him many times.

I love him so much. And he is the comic engine of the piece. So, I mean, his name just hasn't come up yet.

The thing is, too, different from the television show, it was more of a melodrama or soap opera. And this is a pure on comedy. I mean, it is comedy. Well, I mean, that's sort of perfect, given that it's a comedy, a backstage Broadway comedy. Given the producers, you have a lot of experience helming those.

Is there any similarity? Did you pull from that experience at all? Is there any sort of... Yes, I did the show called The Producers.

Applause, whole for your applause. That is all about backstage. You see how to become a producer through the eyes of Leo Bloom.

And so it is like that. I've been very lucky to have done a lot of comedies and know a lot of comics. And so the idea of being able to work with this team who everyone up here are funny people.

It's been a dream, actually. At least these three weeks. I guess there's a couple.

There's a little more. There's a little more to go. I'm so taken by what you...

Given, you know, that you all have such storied histories in musical theater, I mean, Drowsy Chaperone, Jersey Boys, Hairspray, The Producers, I could keep going, I could keep going. Has your approach to making art changed with the advent of social media and with what, you know, Rick, you were just saying, this, you know, the constant eye of people always peering in potentially through the internet? Or do you still get up and write a song just like you wrote Good Morning Baltimore?

I want to retire. I want to retire. It's very hard. It's very hard. I don't think the process changes.

We still write a song like the way we would have written Good Morning, Baltimore. That's not changed. So that's kind of sacred.

So that hasn't changed. You just don't have the safety of being hidden away. Or, you know, it used to be that you could go out of town and the Times would not review you.

You would have a chance to sort of develop a show. You know, in a little bit of a sanctuary, but that's with social media, it's not the case anymore for two reasons. First of all, social media writes about your show, about previews, about rehearsal, about everything, so it's all out there. But also... In the case of The Times, they had to compensate for their lack of power by reviewing shows out of town now because their voice is not the single voice anymore.

There's multiple voices. And the essence of social media is. conflict, right? So you have somebody anonymously saying, you know, the world is flat, you know, and somebody saying, no, that's ridiculous. The earth is round.

And then you have team round and team flat. And they fight with each other on the internet. And there's your little show in the middle trying to, you know, like a little chick hatchling, you know, trying to like, you know, get some food and some air and some water. And there's people yelling and screaming about it outside the building.

That may not affect the songwriting process, but it certainly affects the temperature in the room when the audience comes into the theater. If there's people picketing outside because they don't like who's in the show or they've heard something about something somebody said or they're boycotting for some other particular reason and it's nothing that has to do with the show, but it... does have to do with the presentation of the show and the life of the show. What do you all hope people take from... This iteration of Smash, like why Smash now?

It's so interesting to hear that Steven Spielberg, he thought, or Robert Greenlight will just make a musical every year and send it to Broadway. It takes, you know, a decade to ten years to get it off its ground, and if you're thinking about it, you know, Smash the TV show happened about 13 years ago, so that's sort of the life cycle of a musical. It sort of feels like great timing, but why Smash now, and what do you hope audiences take away from this production? Well, I hope their sides hurt at the end of it. That's what I hope.

Well, it's certainly for what's happening in the world, if you will, right now, to be entertained and to laugh. And this show brings you that. It not only entertains and it's not only going to make you laugh, but it's going to show you how...

a musical is put on, how a creative team will do a number and then they'll come back and they'll fight about the number in the stage manager's office and then they'll do another number and they'll come back and they'll fight about it again. It's the kind of, it's artists, there's no other art form like a musical. That collaboration of music and book and dance and direction and comedy and lights and costumes and set. It is an amazing thing that comes together.

All these artists come to try to make art out of every single page in the script. There's no other art form like it. Not only are they going to be entertained, they're going to laugh, but they're going to find out how to make a musical. And when it goes wrong, as I think everyone on the stage has had, you know, it's when all these people start to see a different show. And that's when the problems start.

If you all, it has to be a singular vision from everyone or else it doesn't work. That's why it is truly the most collaborative. And that's kind of a kernel of what happens in our show. And it's, I mean, it's, again, the essence of our show is a little glimpse behind the curtain. And there's a speech that Wonderful Brooks has where he says, people, you know, this is how it always, when things are going really badly, he says, this is how it works.

You know, the audience is going to come tonight. They're going to see a show that works with a star who's fabulous. And they're not going to have any idea about the little drama that's been going on backstage.

And so that's what our show is, the little drama that's been going on backstage, except it's a farce. Wow, I would be a bad journalist if I didn't ask, has there been any little drama that's gone backstage? No. Absolutely not.

What a ridiculous question. Good answer, that's on the record, that's a good answer. Well, I guess, speaking of a little drama, I know that we have one more number from the show, so I'll throw it over to you.

Bobby, why don't you set up? this next number. Yes, and in order to do this, we do have to give away the major plot point of the show, which is Ivy Lynn is an actress. Yeah, please don't repeat this. She's an actress who's hired to play the notoriously problematic and difficult actress Marilyn Monroe.

And she gets so deep into the role that she actually becomes Marilyn and becomes horribly problematic and difficult. That's basically... Well, kind of like Daniel Day-Lewis, but really goes in deep.

Yes. So this, Rick, why don't you explain? Oh, the number you're about to see represents a scene where, as if by wizardry, the curtain will rise and the entire orchestra will be on stage, tuning up in that wonderful sort of cacophonous sound of an orchestra tuning that we've all heard.

And it's the very special day in the... life of rehearsal of a show. It's called the Sitzprobe.

Sitzprobe, a German word, which for some reason we use in the theater, meaning the day, the first time the full orchestra plays the score for the cast and the crew. And so it's a very wonderful experience because no matter how much trouble you're in, when you hear an orchestra play the score, it's glorious and you think everything's going to be wonderful and it's going to be fantastic because ivy is so has has dived so deep into maryland and method acting that she has started to sort of osmosis into maryland um the decision is made by the director the wonderful brooks ashmascus to um to be taken away to do a publicity day so she will be missing the sits probe because This is a way. for everyone to have a happy, glorious experience and not deal with problematic Marilyn.

And so the song, the new finale, is the first song that's going to be done at the Sitzprobe. The orchestra opens to number 20 in the score, and they begin to play. It's a full orchestra, which you will imagine, with the magnificent Mark Shaman at the keyboard of the piano, a full orchestra, and Marilyn's understudy. and Karen singing this song for the first time with an orchestra because Ivy's not there to do it. Wow.

Alright, so ladies and gentlemen, Caroline Bowman is coming out as part of Carrie. They thought they could dispose of me. They tried to make me small. I suffered each indignity, but now rise above it all. Yes, the price I paid was all I had, but at last I found release.

And if something good can come from bad, the past can rest in peace. So if you see someone's hurt and in need of a hand, Don't forget me. Or hear a melody crying from some baby grand.

Well, don't forget me. When you sing happy birthday to someone you love or see diamonds that never come free, please say that you won't. I pray that you don't forget me. There are some in this world who have strength of their own, Never broken or in need of repair but there are some more to shine who can't do it alone so protect them and take special care take care don't forget me please take care What is this?

This is what's happening here. Our director is trying to take away my zits probe to punish me, I guess. Just like Billy Wilder did on the seven-year itch. He wouldn't let me have a cake on my birthday. It's just petty.

I am not going to be treated like that ever again. From the bridge! There are some in this world who have strength of their own.

Never broken or in need of repair. But there are some born to shine who can't do it alone. So protect them and take special care. Take care. And don't forget me.

Please take care. forget me when you look to the heavens with someone you love and a light shining bright from afar hope you see my face there And then offer a prayer. And please let me be. Let me be. Let's go.

Thank you all so much for joining us. If that doesn't make you want to see the show, I don't know what will, because that is incredible. Just please join me in thanking this incredible panel of creatives. Bob, Rick, Susan, Josh, Scott, and Mark.

And get your tickets to see Smash, because it is one hell of a show. Thank you so much.

Transcript for:Broadway 'Smash' Adaptation Insights

Transcript for:
Broadway 'Smash' Adaptation Insights