SMASH Previews — Page 6

"I’ve been skeptical about this project since it was announced and only grew moreso as we’ve learned more about it, but I’m genuinely surprised at how uniformly negative response has been. I thought for sure there’d be enough there to win people over at least to thinking it was okay. "

Not surprised at all Kad. What did people love about the TV show, the music of "Bombshell" which also was well received by critics. What does this show do, it cuts up the songs that were well liked. Fans of the TV show liked the rivalry and were on "Team Ivy" or Team Karen" and the show makes these two characters unrecognizable to fans of the show. By all accounts, the ending is a mess so there is not much to love or even remotely like.

IMO this should have been fairly simple. Just do "Bombshell" as a standalone musical, there was plenty of good music and story outline to start. The Broadway show would have just needed to add some music and heft to the "Bombshell" story in the show. There was definitely plenty of time to get this done - ha ha. Just basically do Season One of SMASH with a bunch of cuts. Just concentrate on Ivy-Karen rivalry and getting the show to Broadway. Other storylines and characters from that season could be cut easily. No need for Karen's BF, Julia's family and the character of Ellis for example. Either one of these options would be better than the mess that people have reported so far.

FWIW, I have never seen Smash or heard the music and I had a fun time at this. Definitely agree that the book is messy and it's pretty baffling how they handle the Chloe and Karen characters, but otherwise I thought a lot of the jokes landed, the music was great, and the last 20 minutes or so of the first act were excellent.

Brooks Ashmanskas feels like the main character here and the whole thing kind of centers around him, the writers, and the main producer. Definitely not what I expected going in but it kind of worked for me? I dunno. Just my two cents.

I know Jeremy is super busy but I'm still holding out for them to scrap all of this and just put Hit List on stage. Ha.

Picture of additional creative team spotted in the back of the theater last night:

"I know Jeremy is super busy but I'm still holding out for them to scrap all of this and just put Hit List on stage. Ha."

I would love to see "Hit List" on stage. Jeremy Jordan and Katharine McPhee are too old IMO for their parts anymore.

The show lacks cohesion, truncated musical numbers, scattered parts, bitchy comments to provide pretended sophistication. It is another "rob the corpse" scavenger musical which has no actual reason for being. They should have used the plot from the original novel Smash rather than the television series. It will run for a while on the title and the glitzy sets and costumes, but it lacks the substance to be a comment on musical theatre like All About Eve/Applause, or a nostalgic 42nd Street valentine. It has about as much life as Me and Juliet.

BrodyFosse123 said: "Playbill_Trash said: "Picture of additional creative team spotted in the back of the theater last night:

Zero photo is attached.

"

I saw the open rehearsal they did last year and thank GOD they changed that ending! What they originally had was just so completely out of tone with the rest of the show. Unfortunately, what they changed it to now is just dull and doesn’t really make any narrative sense.

After seeing Boop! last night and now Smash tonight, Bob Martin should never write another book again. At least the songs and production of Boop! were more than enough to overcome a bizarre and poorly written book, here the songs are so truncated and split apart that it feels more like a play about a musical, than an actual musical. And when the book scenes are so bad, and take up so much of an almost 3-hour show, woof. We get barely any full songs!

Other than being from the TV show, what really is the point of the Karen character? There’s no reason her and Chloe couldn’t be one character.

Other than the ending, the rest is pretty much exactly was it was at the open rehearsal so they are not going to change anything else major about it by now.

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Fair points. IMHO, I think these 3 changes would very much up-level the show (and possibly could be done in a month or two):

• Ivy and Karen must sing “Let Me Be Your Star” as a duet. This was a HUGE miss because everyone came to see this and left disappointed.
• Merge Chloe’s character into Karen’s and focus on these 2 as leads.
• Remove the fluff from the book, such as the matzo soup / bk scene.

Listener said: "The score was not written to be a score for a coherent piece of musical theatre- it was written as a string of standalone impressive songs to be performed over the course of 2 seasons of television that gestures toward a coherent piece of musical theatre and most of those songs are doing double duty to advance the Smash character narratives. I think it would take a lot of work to make it work (and even performable- Marilyn is performing all but a few numbers out of nearly 2 dozen).

This has been my thought since the project was first announced. Very well stated!

I'm sorry to hear this production is in so much trouble. You'd think they wouldn't have pushed ahead with things until they got it all just right, especially given the implosion of the TV series years ago.

It's sad to say but the days really are gone when capable creative teams use previews to perform necessary surgeries on their work and elevate them. Far too much of what we're given on Broadway these days is mediocre and in serious need of revision. And alas, the revisions never happen."

Make it make sense, Kad lol

Is "Don't Forget Me" really the act 1 closer and done to comedic effect as in the clip the production posted? Why throw that number away? As absurd as the series was, the final episode ultimatley worked becauase it showed the creatives finally coming up with a stunning song at the last minute that brought the entire production (and series) together. "Don't Forget Me" is the finale - the book end piece to "Let Me Be Your Star" and is the much earned reward for all the struggles that come before it.

QueenAlice said: "Is "Don't Forget Me" really the act 1 closer and done to comedic effect as in the clip the production posted? Why throwthat number away? As absurd as the series was, the final episode ultimatley worked becauase it showed the creatives finally coming up with a stunning song at the last minute that brought the entire production (and series) together. "Don't Forget Me" is the finale - the book end piece to "Let Me Be Your Star" and is the much earned reward for all the struggles that come before it."

No, "Let Be Your Star" (in the show-within-a-show's ultimate version) is the Act 1 closer. "Don't Forget Me" is done at the sitzprobe just before that, and performed as in the clip (Ivy's such a nightmare they schedule something else at the same time as the sitzprobe with the intention of having Karen do it; Ivy shows up halfway through and reclaims her song). The problem is, the triumphant version of "Don't Forget Me" doesn't work with the ending of Smash the musical

Updated On: 3/14/25 at 10:29 AM