SMASH Previews- Page 13

[jeffrey2]

Posted: 3/29/25 at 8:15pm

I was a fan of the show and I did enjoy it .. there I said it . I also met Marc Shaiman there last night . 

[Melissa25]

Posted: 3/29/25 at 11:09pm

This thread had me fairly apprehensive but I had a great time at Smash. I laughed often and loved the musical numbers. The cast is terrific and I would like to see it again. The ending was a bit over the top but I was never bored and there are plenty of songs that I would want to hear again. 

[BdwyFan]

Posted: 3/30/25 at 12:20am

Such a fun show!  Just what we need in today’s times. Great laughs.  Great music.  Oh, and Steven Spielberg was there today!!

 

[Voter]

Posted: 3/30/25 at 2:04am

This show isn't just bad, it's shockingly bad. A completely nuts yet somehow also incredibly lame plot with a million loose threads, hackneyed and uninspired humor including (of all things) poop jokes, ugly costumes and cheap sets, and incredibly average performances with mostly flat acting (save for Brooks Ashmansakas and Kristine Nielsen who both know exactly what tone to hit and how to milk a bad joke till it almost seems like a good one).

I had the greatest time of my life. Like "The Room" of musicals. So shockingly bad it's almost good again. The show doesn't realize it's high CAMP, but thankfully some of the actors do. Never once I was bored (it did have rapid pacing), I've been more bored at shows I loved, but here I was too busy laughing so hard I was crying at this miraculous **** show and the overwhelming and endless number of awful creative choices. So awful it kind of works itself around again to a must see.

The critics are going to have a field day with this and I doubt it'll last through the summer (if that long). 

[Voter]

Posted: 3/30/25 at 2:10am

quizking101 said: "I have honestly no idea what I just saw tonight.

It has the SMASH name. It has the SMASH songs. But whatever this Frankenstein monster of hackneyed tropes, half-baked plots, and poor character development doesn’t deserve the title.

Yes, the show itself (Season 1 at least)was a soapy mess, but at some point it realized that leaning into the camp made it an enjoyable watch. This felt like trying to condense an entire season into one show and the songs usedare primarily non-diegetic, making this in essence a badly written play with interspersed music. The only thing that comes out good from this are the songs we know and love.

Bob Martin’s book was bafflingly terrible. Most characters I either felt were underused (Caroline Bowman’s Karen), questioned their existence (the social media kid), or downright terrible people (mostly everyone else). I especially took issue with Brooks Ashmanskas’ character being essentially a slightly predatory gay directorgoing after a chorus boy. There isn’t really any room for that type of character behavior the post-Me Too era. Additionally, I know Brooks tends to play characters that are all cut from the same flamboyantly gay cloth, but most of his choices here seemed like they were recycled from his role in THE PROM. Additionally, Joshua Bergasse’s choreography is recycled from the television show more than once, which is rather lazy to me.

l don’t know why they just didn’t move forward with the straight BOMBSHELL show. This was just a bomb…"

I believe you mean diegetic. Am I mixing them up? Just curious. Can someone confirm or deny?

[TheatreFan4]

Posted: 3/31/25 at 8:15pm

 

This is your first footage of this show and there is not a single set piece on stage. WHAT is happening?

[malcs98]

Posted: 3/31/25 at 8:53pm

I believe you meandiegetic. Am I mixing them up? Just curious. Can someone confirm or deny?"

Well diagetic music is music that characters in a film, show, or play can hear or sing as it originates from within the fictional world, like music playing on a radio or from a live band or yeah, even in a fictional musical about Marilyn Monroe. So to the above poster, you are correct, the way the songs are performed in Smash is very much diagetic

 

[matineeidol2591]

Posted: 3/31/25 at 9:37pm

Am I the only one that hates the new norm of dubbing cast recording vocals over b-roll video footage? The new Let Me Be Your Star video is clearly the vocal tracks in the promo released a few weeks back. Hate that. Give me the real unfiltered voices

[HugoP]

Posted: 4/1/25 at 1:18am

I also really enjoyed this, and I don't think of myself as a fan boy (of Broadway musicals or of SMASH).  I think the production is a lot of fun, with the great BOMBSHELL songs, the chaos of a production in trouble and the outsized personalities on the verge of nervous breakdowns.  Brooks Ashmanskas is terrific (though he's pretty much replaying Barry from THE PROM, no complaints here), Robyn Hurder is wonderful, Krysta Rodriguez is reliably great.  Loved Bella Coppola's work as the director's assistant (with some pretty major moments).  As has been discussed throughout the thread, Kristine Neilsen is doing some major comedy work with a overinflated, one-joke role.  Saw it with a packed house tonight-- and they seemed to love it.  

NOTE: I actually agree with a lot of the posters who cited the show's flaws-- an implausible book, too many outdated jokes, subpar costumes and sets-- but there's a lot of talent on the stage (and in the pit!) and it was a hell of a lot more fun than, say, SUNSET BLVD.