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.
