Title : With a Singing SpongeBob, Nickelodeon Aims for a Broadway Splash | SpongeBob SquarePants: The Broadway Musical *Updated With New Interview*
link : With a Singing SpongeBob, Nickelodeon Aims for a Broadway Splash | SpongeBob SquarePants: The Broadway Musical *Updated With New Interview*
With a Singing SpongeBob, Nickelodeon Aims for a Broadway Splash | SpongeBob SquarePants: The Broadway Musical *Updated With New Interview*
Tina Landau was giving instructions through a bullhorn inside the Palace Theater just days before a show 10 years in the making was set to debut. It was a dress rehearsal for SpongeBob SquarePants: The Broadway Musical and the outlandishly costumed cast was preparing the finale, getting ready to make music on instruments including a trombone, guitars, ukuleles and marching tenor drums.
Danny Skinner as Patrick Star, Ethan Slater as SpongeBob SquarePants and Lilli Cooper as Sandy Cheeks in “SpongeBob SquarePants: The Broadway Musical” at the Palace Theater.
“Don’t be insulted if we suddenly say, ‘Oh, pretend you’re playing, but don’t play,’” Ms. Landau, the director, warned.
She was trying to contain the cacophony. That’s not to say the roughly $20-million musical, based on the Nickelodeon cartoon that made an unlikely superstar out of a yellow kitchen sponge, means to be low-key.
“We have tons of confetti and balls thrown into the air!” Ms. Landau said of the finale. “We just go, ‘O.K. everyone, go insane for a minute.’”
If nautical nonsense be something you wish, Nickelodeon’s first foray on Broadway hopes to land with a big splash: an extravagant production, based on one of its most prized property's, with music by stars like John Legend, Cyndi Lauper, the late David Bowie that pulls out every bell, whistle and pool noodle.
If this sounds like an unserious show that will drop on the deck and flop like a fish, think otherwise: as the theater’s signage says, “The Broadway Musical for Everyone” — not just kids, or college students.
But if sensory overload is the goal: mission accomplished.
The animated SpongeBob SquarePants had its premiere in 1999 and is now viewed in more than 200 countries. Set in the underwater town of Bikini Bottom, it captures the goofy friendship of its cheerful title character and the simple sea star Patrick. SpongeBob and his neighbor, a cranky octopus named Squidward, work at the Krusty Krab, an underwater fast-food outlet owned by the money-hungry Mr. Krabs.
Stephen Hillenburg, a writer and director for Nickelodeon’s Rocko’s Modern Life, drew on his college marine biology studies in creating the series. It has spawned two feature films, with a third on the way, and has generated more than $13 billion in retail merchandise sales.
Patrick and SpongeBob in the animated series, which has been on the air since 1999 and spawned two films and now a Broadway musical. Credit Nickelodeon
Adapting family entertainment to Broadway has brought mixed results, especially when not from Disney. Recent examples include Matilda (a hit), Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, Seussical and Shrek the Musical.
Cyma Zarghami, the Nickelodeon president, was initially skeptical about the idea of bringing the beloved sponge to the stage.
“I was worried that somebody would take SpongeBob and put a square character on the stage and it would look like a skip and a wave show for little kids,” Ms. Zarghami said in an interview with The New York Times at the corporate headquarters for Viacom, which owns Nickelodeon.
“So I gave the assignment: ‘If you can find somebody who can translate it in the most clever way possible, so that people are in awe of it, in the way they were originally in awe of The Lion King, then I’m all in.”
When Ms. Landau was invited to pitch, she quickly declined. “All that went through my head was an image of a kind of theme park show with people in big mascot costumes,” she said.
The show’s director, Tina Landau, seen backstage, was dubious about a musical based on the cartoon. But her pitch to network executives worked. Credit Amy Lombard for The New York Times
She changed her mind after her agent said that Mr. Hillenburg was interested only if the musical would capture the cartoon’s independent spirit. (Mr. Hillenburg said last spring that he had been diagnosed with ALS.)
“I started watching the show for research,” Ms. Landau said. “I realized that the show itself is rather subversive, really psychedelic and whimsical and very much full of anarchic energy. It’s a world where anything is possible.”
When Mr. Hillenburg created Bikini Bottom, it was out of whole cloth: a brand-new universe from nothing. Ms. Landau’s challenge was to take the existing vision and make it fresh.
She proposed a show that “explodes off the stage.” Undersea creatures would be played by actors recognizable as humans and not overwhelmed by costuming. (The costumes are still rather elaborate. For claws, Mr. Krabs wears boxing gloves roughly the size of twin infants.) And Ms. Landau wanted a varied pop music score provided by A-list musicians.
The pitch worked, and Nickelodeon put its flagship character in the hands of an unconventional director, known more for new-wave vaudeville and quiet, emotional musicals (Floyd Collins) than Broadway blockbusters.
Before there was a script — or a commitment to fully produce the show — Ms. Landau held workshops, pairing traditional actors with clowns, acrobats, dancers and magicians.
Ethan Slater, a redheaded sophomore at Vassar College, was invited to audition for the role of SpongeBob.
“It was actually really incredibly liberating to not have any structure to work with,’’ Mr. Slater said, “except for the main concept from Tina: ‘This is not an arena show. There are no prosthetics here. We want to see how we can take these characters and put their essence onstage.’”
Ethan Slater, center, in a production number from the musical, which features songs written by pop stars. Credit Sara Krulwich/The New York Times
Three more workshops over four years, each featuring Mr. Slater, followed. (Kyle Jarrow, an offbeat musical-theater writer, was brought in to write the book, which centers on SpongeBob trying to save Bikini Bottom from an erupting volcano.) Eventually the network gave the go-ahead and the musical had its debut at Chicago’s Oriental Theater in June 2016.
There, and now in New York, David Zinn’s set design for Bikini Bottom encompasses the whole theater. Fish hooks and boomboxes hang from the ceiling. A Rube Goldbergesque device delivers bouncy-ball boulders onto the stage. And items that might be discarded in the ocean, like cardboard boxes and hula hoops, figure prominently.
The show has received mostly positive reviews, including from the Chicago Tribune, who said that kids “will feel like they’ve walked into an anarchic playland” while adults “will still feel like they’re getting their money’s worth.”
In this political moment the show even has — excuse the pun — undercurrents. Bikini Bottom’s mayor refers to the “dishonest media,” and a subplot is the scapegoating of Sandy Cheeks, a water-loving squirrel, for Bikini Bottom’s ills because she’s a foreign “land mammal.”
After Chicago, Nickelodeon insisted on one change, even over Ms. Landau’s initial objections: The SpongeBob Musical was retitled SpongeBob SquarePants: The Broadway Musical, to more closely adhere to the television branding.
Now the show, currently in previews and will officially open on Dec. 4, faces the big challenge: convincing theatergoers that it isn’t a kid-centered commercial novelty. In fact, according to Nielsen, almost 25 percent of households watching the TV series are without children.
Stephanie Lee, the president of Group Sales Box Office, described ticket sales as strong. “What’s really interesting is that we’re booking elementary through universities — and that’s not typical of a Broadway musical,” she said.
During the first week of previews, it took only a split-second for the packed house to recognize the rather ebullient sponge at home in his pineapple. The crowd erupted in applause when Patrick insisted he get a verse in the show’s opening number.
There was indeed a diverse audience, including families and young adults. Among them was Michael Hansen, 25, who received tickets as a birthday gift from his girlfriend, Madeline Culkin. Whilst talking to The New York Times, Hansen talked about his SpongeBob fandom, including a “Spongesquad” text message group he has with friends.
“He sends me memes of SpongeBob weekly,” Ms. Culkin, also 25, added.
The explosion of confetti that Ms. Landau excitedly described during rehearsal fell from the ceiling at the finale, and beach balls were batted about by the audience. In this crowd, at least, the cheerful yellow sponge had defied his doubters.
“I understand the skepticism because I felt it and Cyma felt it,” Ms. Landau said. “Yet, my hope is — and my experience has been borne out so far — that when people are here, and do experience it, that changes. Which is why we’ve been so eager to get it in front of audiences.”
To purchase tickets the SpongeBob SquarePants Broadway musical, visit SpongeBobBroadway.com, Ticketmaster.com or call 877-250-2929.
Also, from Newsday:
‘SpongeBob SquarePants’ moves from TV to Broadway
The musical lovingly re-creates on stage the exotic world of Bikini Bottom and its colorful characters.
If Tina Landau hadn’t become a director, she probably would have followed in the webbed footsteps of Jacques Cousteau.
“When I was a kid, I wanted to be a director or an oceanographer,” says Landau. “I was always attracted to the idea of being underwater.”
Now she gets to embrace her love of all things aquatic as the woman at the helm of “SpongeBob SquarePants,” the musical based on the smash Nickelodeon cartoon about everyone’s favorite happy-as-a clam sponge that opens Monday, Dec. 4, at the Palace Theatre. “We’ve tried to create an environment from the moment you enter where . . . the feel of the place takes you underwater in this completely idiosyncratic and colorful environment,” says Landau. “We use the aisles to a great extent and we have a passerelle built into the house where the action takes place.”
SpongeBob’s hometown has been re-created in all its watercolor splendor from the pineapple he calls home to the backgrounds of ocean fauna and umbrellas that resemble jellyfish. It’s the culmination of a voyage to the bottom of the theatrical sea that’s been 10 years in the making, starting from the moment Landau’s agent asked her to meet with Nickelodeon. Her initial reaction was to say no.
“I assumed that what Nickelodeon wanted to do was a stadium show with a big mascot and foam costumes,” Landau says. “They said they only wanted to do this if there was a way of making it new and inventive and to bring new life to the brand. That was very freeing to me.”
THE ROAD TO BIKINI BOTTOM
It took a year following that initial meeting before Landau was hired. Her first assignment was holding a workshop to discuss her vision for the physicality of the show with the producers. Landau insisted the actors not be in full body costumes, but wear the simplest of wardrobes to enable them to be use their bodies freely. That was especially necessary for Ethan Slater, who plays the title role and is often required to contort his body in unimaginable ways.
“I have splits where I’m bending myself in half. I’m singing upside down, says Slater, whose costume consists of a button-down shirt, red tie and those famous pants. “Each time I’ve done the show, I’ve learned a special skill or a new little trick I never thought I would be doing. I’ve trained myself to be more flexible.”
Next came the search for a book writer and a second workshop devoted to creating the story. The premise of Kyle Jarrow’s book is that SpongeBob, his dimwitted starfish buddy Patrick and squirrel gal pal Sandy must prevent a volcano from destroying Bikini Bottom. Along the way, the show deals with themes of community, adversity and loving thy neighbor.
Tying the story together is an eclectic array of songs ranging from heavy metal to gospel penned by an impressive roster of artists, including John Legend, David Bowie, Sara Bareilles, Steven Tyler, Joe Perry, Cyndi Lauper and Panic at the Disco!
Also in the mix are the TV show’s theme song, and “Best Day Ever,” which was written for the series by Andy Paley and Tom Kenny, who has been the voice of SpongeBob since the first episode in 1999.
“I had nothing to do with that getting in the Broadway show,” Kenny says. “I was jazzed about it. When I saw the show in Chicago, it was ingeniously used as the 11 o’clock song where things look their worst and destruction of everything seems imminent. . . . We wrote it as this anthemic thing. We needed a song that’s summed up SpongeBob’s philosophy toward life.”
FINDING SPONGEBOB
It wasn’t until 2012 that Landau began to cast the show then labeled “The Untitled Tina Landau Project.” Slater was on summer break from Vassar College and appearing in Connecticut in “Romeo and Juliet.” The casting director for that show recommended that he try out for “SpongeBob.”
Landau was captivated immediately. “SpongeBob is just about exploring the ability to see the world with childlike eyes full of wonder and a very particular humor, which Ethan has,” she says. “He really knew the show. He just shares a sensibility with that little yellow sponge.”
Both Slater and Danny Skinner, who plays Patrick, spent hours watching films of classic slapstick comedians, including Charlie Chaplin, Harold Lloyd, and Laurel and Hardy to prepare for the show’s demanding physical comedy. At the same time, the actors aren’t trying to just do an impersonation, least of all their cartoon inspirations.
“We are real people, so we can’t possibly be cartoon characters,” says Skinner. “The costumes are an extension of that. I get a little bit of a tie dye and six Hawaiian shirts and a pompadour and it is so distinctly Patrick without just being an imitation of the television show.”
For Slater, one of the hardest facets of his character was mastering that distinctive high-pitched SpongeBob laugh. “When I auditioned, I didn’t even try to do the laugh, not because I was being clever, but because I was so confident I couldn’t do it,” Slater says.
Not only has he got the laugh down, but it earned the seal of approval from Kenny who attended the show’s Chicago opening in June 2016 and has a voice-over role in the Broadway show as the French narrator. “Tom Kenny is awesome,” Slater says. “We talked a lot at the opening night party. When we went to L.A. in the fall, the whole SpongeBob team met me at the Nickelodeon building and Tom Kenny was there and we had a laugh-off. He laughed, then I laughed, then we laughed together and that felt like a pretty good pat-on-the-back endorsement.”
Since the Chicago tryout, “SpongeBob” had some retooling and Landau has been happy with the changes. “We looked at every moment, every character, every song and asked how can this be better,” Landau says. “We deepened characters and their relationships with each other. We have given the story even greater resonance to the world we live in.”
Tied to that, Landau hopes that the end result will be that audiences soak up some of that SpongeBob optimism. “A year and a half before Chicago, I said the world needs a SpongeBob musical. I was both cheered and jeered for that statement,” she says. “I stand by it even more strongly today. I think it’s less about escape from what’s going on in our world and more about telling a story that echoes and reflects our world, yet reminds us how important it is to treasure each other, treasure our community, treasure diversity, and most of all embrace joy in how we live each day that we’re granted.”
SPONGEBOB GETS AROUND
The Great White Way is the latest avenue for SpongeBob SquarePants to conquer with the opening of the new musical. Here are three other arenas where SpongeBob has soaked up fans.
TELEVISION
The Nicktoon “SpongeBob SquarePants” about the fry cook with an eternally sunny disposition premiered in April 1999. The show was an immediate hit, and its blend of surrealism, comedy and catchy tunes has been a recipe even more successful than that of his signature dish, the Krabby Patty.
MOVIES
It was only a matter of time before SpongeBob made the plunge to the big screen. “The SpongeBob SquarePants Movie” (2004) had him tracking down King Neptune’s crown and trying to outwit a villain voiced by Alec Baldwin. The film’s success spawned 2015’s “The SpongeBob Movie: Sponge Out of Water.”
COMICS
In 2012, the Absorbent One finally landed his own comic book. The headline on the first issue was, naturally, “He’s Ready!”
--Ends--
Full information about the The SpongeBob Musical can be found on the productions official website, thespongebobmusical.com! #SpongeBobBway.
SpongeBob SquarePants - The New Musical Original Cast Recording is available to listen to and purchase today at http://ift.tt/2wgFpiy.
Online / Social Media
Website: SpongeBobBroadway.com
Facebook: http://ift.tt/2v8FbpM
Twitter: @SpongeBobBway
Instagram: #spongebobbway
YouTube: http://youtube.com/spongebobbroadway
More Nick: Are You Ready Kids? SPONGEBOB SQUAREPANTS Musical Begins Broadway Previews; New Block Of Tickets Available!
Originally posted: Wednesday, November 22, 2017.
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