The multi-award winning SpongeBob SquarePants Musical has announced its first National Tour stop - Las Vegas! This confirms previously announced plans for a tour of the U.S. during the 2019/2020 season.
The The SpongeBob Musical will be stopping in Las Vegas, Nevada between Tuesday, Feb. 4 – Sunday, Feb. 9, 2020, as part of the Smith Center for the Performing Arts's blockbuster season for its 2019-2020 Broadway Las Vegas Series, sponsored by Southern Nevada Ford Stores and Lewis Roca Rothgerber Christie Law Firm!
SpongeBob SquarePants explodes with energy and features an original pop and rock-infused score by a legendary roster of Grammy® Award-winning songwriters. Led and conceived by visionary director Tina Landau (2018 Tony Award nominee) and a Tony Award®-winning design team, the production brings the spirit of SpongeBob to life with humanity, heart, and pure theatricality.
The stakes are higher than ever as SpongeBob and all of Bikini Bottom face the total annihilation of their undersea world. Chaos erupts. Lives hang in the balance. And just when all hope seems lost, a most unexpected hero rises up and takes center stage.
Get ready to dive to all-new depths of theatrical innovation at SpongeBob SquarePants, where the power of optimism really can save the world!
SpongeBob SquarePants features a book by Kyle Jarrow, music supervision, orchestrations and arrangements by Tom Kitt, choreography by Christopher Gattelli, musical direction by Julie McBride, colorful costumes and Tony-winning by David Zinn, projection design by Peter Nigrini, lighting design by Kevin Adams, sound design by Walter Trarbach, foley design by Mike Dobson, hair and wig design by Charles G. LaPointe and casting by Telsey + Company/Patrick Goodwin, CSA.
The Broadway cast for SpongeBob SquarePants included Tony Award Nominee Ethan Slater as SpongeBob SquarePants, Tony Award Nominee Gavin Lee as Squidward Q. Tentacles, Lilli Cooper and Christina Sajous as Sandy Cheeks, Brian Ray Norris as Eugene Krabs, Danny Skinner as Patrick Star and Wesley Taylor as Sheldon Plankton.
The ensemble included Brandon Espinoza, Alex Gibson, Gaelen Gilliland, Juliane Godfrey, Jordan Grubb, Kyle Matthew Hamilton, Curtis Holbrook, Jesse JP Johnson, L'ogan J'ones, Jai'len Christine Li Josey, Kelvin Moon Loh, Lauralyn Mcclelland, Vasthy Mompoint, Oneika Phillips, Catherine Ricafort, JC Schuster, Allysa Shorte, Abby C. Smith, Robert Taylor Jr., Allan K. Washington, Brynn Williams, Matt Wood and Tom Kenny as the French Narrator.
It's currently unknown whether any of the original Broadway cast will be reprising their characters for the U.S. tour of the show.
SpongeBob SquarePants is a one-of-a-kind musical event with original songs by Yolanda Adams, Steven Tyler and Joe Perry of Aerosmith, Sara Bareilles, Jonathan Coulton, Alexander Ebert of Edward Sharpe & The Magnetic Zeros, The Flaming Lips, Lady Antebellum, Cyndi Lauper, John Legend, Panic! At the Disco, Plain White T's, They Might Be Giants and T.I., and a song by David Bowie and by SpongeBob SquarePants voice actor Tom Kenny and Andy Paley. Additional lyrics by Jonathan Coulton. Additional music by Tom Kitt.
The critically acclaimed SpongeBob SquarePants musical was named Best Musical by the Drama Desk Awards and Outer Critics Circle and earned 12 Tony Award nominations - the most nominated musical of the 2017-2018 theatre season - including nods for Best Musical, director Tina Landau, book writer Kyle Jarrow, title player Ethan Slater (in his Broadway debut), and the all-star roster of songwriters (including Sara Bareilles, Cyndi Lauper, and John Legend) who contributed to the score. The production earned 12 Tony Award nominations including best musical, equaling Mean Girls for the most of any show this season, and while The Band's Visit swept the honors, SpongeBob did score a deserved win for Best Scenic Design of a Musical for David Zinn's scenic design. The show’s director, Tina Landau, earned a Tony Award nomination for her inventive and unconventional approach to the material that humanized the characters than creating literal representations of the familiar Nickelodeon cartoon.
Following a Chicago tryout during summer 2016, SpongeBob SquarePants: The Broadway Musical opened at Broadway's Palace Theatre during Fall 2017, where it ran for 327 regular performances and 29 previews, defying critical expectations by earning some of the warmest reviews of the season. The show closed in September 2018 to make way for refurbishments at the Palace Theatre.
While many expected a theme park-style brand extension, the show surprised theatergoers with its wild Dadaist comic sensibility, ingenious design and winning performances, notably from gifted 26-year-old newcomer Ethan Slater, making a terrific Broadway debut in the title role.
Early in 2019, school and youth group licensing rights will be available, with professional licensing to follow. A North American tour will begin fall 2019.
SpongeBob SquarePants - The New Musical Original Cast Recording is available to purchase today at https://spongebobmusical.lnk.to/SpongebobMusicalRecording.
SpongeBob SquarePants is produced by Nickelodeon with The Araca Group, Sony Music Masterworks and Kelp on the Road.
Below is Smith Center for the Performing Arts's official show description for The SpongeBob Musical!:
THE SPONGEBOB MUSICAL
Tuesday, Feb. 4 – Sunday, Feb. 9, 2020
A legendary roster of Grammy® Award winners. A visionary director and a Tony Award®- winning design team. One of the world’s most beloved characters. Turn them loose on stage and what do you get? The bold, original musical The New York Times declares, “BRILLIANT!” “Wonders our from the stage in a ravishing stream and invention” (Time Out New York) as Broadway’s best creative minds reimagine and bring to life the beloved Nickelodeon series with humor, heart and pure theatrically in a neon-sparkly “party for the eyes and ear” (Daily Beast). Be there when SpongeBob and all of Bikini Bottom face catastrophe – until a most unexpected hero rises to take center stage. This “creative explosion” (Broadway.com) is “nothing short of genius” says Theatermania, so bring the entire family to celebrate friendship and cooperation, and learn the power of unity and inclusion. Get ready to enjoy the “Broadway Extravaganza” (The New Yorker) that New York Magazine calls “effervescent candy-for-the-spirit.” Explore depths of theatrical innovation in NICKELODEON’S THE SPONGEBOB MUSICAL, 2018 Best Musical winner of the Drama Desk and Outer Critics Circle Awards, where the power of optimism really can save the world.
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In addition to SpongeBob SquarePants, the Smith Center for the Performing Arts's 2019-2020 Broadway Las Vegas Series will also include Mean Girls, Anastasia, Wicked, Jesus Christ Superstar, Dr. Suess' How The Grinch Stole Christmas! The Musical, Escape to Margaritaville, Once On This Island, The Book of Mormon, and The Band's Visit. The season will feature an impressive award collection including 24 Tonys, two Grammys, 26 Drama Desk Awards, seven Laurence Olivier Awards, and more. Visit LasVegasNow.com for more information.
Follow SpongeBob SquarePants: The Broadway Musical on social media:
Website: https://spongebobbroadway.com
Facebook: facebook.com/SpongeBobBway
Twitter: @SpongeBobBway
Instagram: #spongebobbway
YouTube: youtube.com/spongebobbroadway
SpongeBob SquarePants first debuted on Nickelodeon USA on May 1, 1999 and is still going strong.
Since its launch in July 1999, SpongeBob SquarePants has emerged as a pop culture phenomenon. The series has been the most-watched animated program with kids 2-11 for more than 15 consecutive years, and over the past several years, it has averaged more than 100,000,000 total viewers every quarter across all Nickelodeon networks. SpongeBob SquarePants is the most widely distributed property in Viacom International Media Networks history, seen in more than 208 countries and territories and translated in 55+ languages. The character-driven cartoon chronicles the nautical and sometimes nonsensical adventures of SpongeBob, an incurably optimistic and earnest sea sponge, and his undersea friends in the fictional underwater city of Bikini Bottom. Among those friends are SpongeBob's best friend, a pink starfish named Patrick Star, his neighbor and co-worker octopus Squidward Tentacles, and Sandy Cheeks, a squirrel from Texas.
SpongeBob SquarePants is created by Stephen Hillenburg, who previously worked as a writer, director and creative director on Nickelodeon's animated series Rocko's Modern Life. Hillenburg graduated from the California Institute of the Arts with a master's degree in experimental animation and his undergraduate degree, from Humboldt State University, was in natural science with an emphasis in marine biology. Hillenburg executive produced the series until his untimely passing in November 2018. His first feature film, The SpongeBob SquarePants Movie, which debuted Nov. 19, 2004 and his second theatrical, The SpongeBob Movie: Sponge Out of Water, hit theaters Feb. 6, 2015, landing at #1 opening weekend.
SpongeBob SquarePants has been renewed through to at least the show's twelfth season, will be celebrating its 20th anniversary in 2019, has its own critically acclaimed Broadway show, set to tour the U.S. from Fall 2019, and has a third upcoming movie, The SpongeBob Movie: It's a Wonderful Sponge, set to be released in Summer 2020. The series is produced at Nickelodeon in Burbank.
SpongeBob has also been making news for a different reason as well and it involves paying tribute to the late Stephen Hillenburg, the creator of SpongeBob SquarePants. A petition which calls for a SpongeBob Super Bowl tribute featuring "Sweet Victory", a song featured in the series and a favorite among fans, for the show creator has gained immense traction.
From the looks of it, fans’ effort to get a Super Bowl tribute seems to be a success. A recent promo video released by Maroon 5 on their official Twitter account has teased that the band has something planned to pay their tribute to Hillenburg.
More Nick: Nickelodeon Outlines SpongeBob SquarePants' 20th Anniversary Celebration Plans | SpongeBob Imagination Shellabration!
Additional source: Broadway News.
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