Hollywood Bowl, Full-Fledged Broadway Run Next for BOMBSHELL Concert?

The concert presentation of BOMBSHELL, the musical from the NBC TV series "Smash", hit Broadway in a one-night-only event benefitting The Actors Fund earlier this week at The Minskoff Theatre.

Just after the event, the Los Angeles Times caught up with composer/lyricist team Marc Shaiman and Scott Wittman, who talked about the possibility of expanding BOMBSHELL into a full-fledged Broadway musical. For now, though, their sights are set on an encore in Hollywood.

"I would love to do this at the Hollywood Bowl," Wittman told the Times. "That would definitely be appropriate. Marilyn comes home."

Discussing BOMBSHELL's potential future on Broadway, Shaiman said: "I would certainly love to think that these songs and those performances could continue to live. Anyone in that theater would be perplexed as to why something like that couldn't continue."

The writing duo told the Times they originally created BOMBSHELL's musical numbers with the stage in mind, maybe even "to the 'detriment' of the television show." "We tried to stay so pure to what we thought it should be. The subject was Broadway and that was to us a classic sound," Whittman said.

SMASH executive producers Neil Meron and Craig Zadan called BOMBSHELL's central idea "pretty auspicious" -- "to combine that score with a story about a beloved movie icon." "But that's easier said than done," Meron told the Times.

BOMBSHELL is the Marilyn Monroe musical created in NBC's Golden Globe-nominated television hit series SMASH, featuring the Emmy-nominated songs "Let Me Be Your Star," and "Hang the Moon."

Zadan went on to say that BOMBSHELL "really needs a conceptual point of view and somebody who can write this who has a vision how to make it so it's not a biography."

Whether BOMBSHELL makes it to Broadway full-time also depends on SMASH producers Steven Spielberg and NBC's Bob Greenblatt (currently producing SOMETHING ROTTEN! and GENTLEMAN'S GUIDE), as well as creator Theresa Rebeck, who left SMASH after season one. "I'd be happy for it to move forward," Rebeck said. "I really believe in the work I've done on it. I put my heart and soul into 'Smash.'"

Created by Theresa Rebeck, with music by Marc Shaiman, lyrics by Shaiman & Scott Wittman, BOMBSHELL was directed at The Minskoff Theatre by Joshua Bergasse & Wittman, with choreography by Bergasse, and music direction by Shaiman.

The one-night-only landmark event featuring BOMBSHELL's original songs showcased the talents of Christian Borle, Will Chase, Megan Hilty, Katharine McPhee and Debra Messing, as well as Jaime Cepero, Brian d'Arcy James, Ann Harada, Jeremy Jordan, Donna McKechnie, Leslie Odom, Jr., and Wesley Taylor.

Photo Credit: Jay Brady