The time is Renaissance England, where two brothers, Nick and Nigel Bottom, are desperate to write a hit play. But how can they when the competition is the biggest star of the era, everyone's favorite bard: William Shakespeare? So they seek out the soothsayer Nostradamus. But not the Nostradamus, his nephew Thomas, who gives our heroes a completely original idea from the future - write a play with songs. And thus, the first ever musical is born. But not without much mayhem, madness, and musical mishaps. There is indeed Something Rotten! - and it will have audiences rolling in the aisles.
Anything you've ever liked in a musical comedy (and a few things you haven't) are here, just waiting to sing-and-dance you into submission...It's total silliness, of course; Nicholaw keeps the lights bright, the sound loud, and the plot moving at a furious boil...As light as the material may be, it's no easy achievement, and quite a surprise coming from a group of writers with no experience on Broadway...For every freshman infelicity...there are a dozen smart lyrical jokes, nicely set on tunes that do only as much as they need to in order to keep the momentum going...a more fundamental problem -- the only one, really -- is too deeply entwined in what makes the show work to have ever unwound it. I refer to its relentlessness, the will to conquer at any cost, like Mel Brooks on steroids.
Something Rotten! revels in its silliness while delivering such a nonstop blitzkrieg of production numbers, each out-doing the one before, that you hardly notice how much you've fallen in love with the Bottom bros...It's entirely possible that I would have had a different reaction had not the show given us the exuberant D'Arcy James in his best role ever...Ditto Borle....The book is jam-packed with outrageous puns, bad jokes and inside references to Shakespeare and Broadway, and in that the show is like the much-missed series Forbidden Broadway, but on steroids...One surefire combination in the art of producing for Broadway is the ability to make audiences feel smart -- but not outsmarted -- and giddy at the same time...Anyone who can pull off jabs at Cats and Les Miz at this late hour has tapped into something, you know, not rotten -- and the best tonic I can imagine for this endless winter season.
2015 | Broadway |
Original Broadway Production Broadway |
2017 | US Tour |
National Tour US Tour |
Year | Ceremony | Category | Nominee |
---|---|---|---|
2015 | BroadwayWorld Awards | Best Featured Actor in a Musical | Christian Borle |
2015 | Drama Desk Awards | Outstanding Actor in a Musical | Brian d'Arcy James |
2015 | Drama Desk Awards | Outstanding Book of a Musical | John O'Farrell |
2015 | Drama Desk Awards | Outstanding Book of a Musical | Karey Kirkpatrick |
2015 | Drama Desk Awards | Outstanding Choreography | Casey Nicholaw |
2015 | Drama Desk Awards | Outstanding Director of a Musical | Casey Nicholaw |
2015 | Drama Desk Awards | Outstanding Featured Actor in a Musical | Christian Borle |
2015 | Drama Desk Awards | Outstanding Featured Actor in a Musical | Brad Oscar |
2015 | Drama Desk Awards | Outstanding Lyrics | Wayne Kirkpatrick |
2015 | Drama Desk Awards | Outstanding Lyrics | Karey Kirkpatrick |
2015 | Drama Desk Awards | Outstanding Musical | Something Rotten! |
2015 | Drama Desk Awards | Outstanding Orchestrations | Larry Hochman |
2015 | Drama League Awards | Distinguished Performance Award | Christian Borle |
2015 | Drama League Awards | Distinguished Performance Award | Brian d'Arcy James |
2015 | Drama League Awards | Outstanding Production of a Broadway or Off-Broadway Musical | Something Rotten! |
2015 | Outer Critics Circle Awards | Outstanding Actor in a Musical | Brian d'Arcy James |
2015 | Outer Critics Circle Awards | Outstanding Actor in a Musical | Christian Borle |
2015 | Outer Critics Circle Awards | Outstanding Book of a Musical | Something Rotten! |
2015 | Outer Critics Circle Awards | Outstanding Choreography | Casey Nicholaw |
2015 | Outer Critics Circle Awards | Outstanding Costume Design | Gregg Barnes |
2015 | Outer Critics Circle Awards | Outstanding Director of a Musical | Casey Nicholaw |
2015 | Outer Critics Circle Awards | Outstanding Featured Actor in a Musical | John Cariani |
2015 | Outer Critics Circle Awards | Outstanding Featured Actress in a Musical | Heidi Blickenstaff |
2015 | Outer Critics Circle Awards | Outstanding Lighting Design | Jeff Croiter |
2015 | Outer Critics Circle Awards | Outstanding New Broadway Musical | Something Rotten! |
2015 | Outer Critics Circle Awards | Outstanding Set Design | Scott Pask |
2015 | Tony Awards | Best Book of a Musical | Karey Kirkpatrick |
2015 | Tony Awards | Best Book of a Musical | John O'Farrell |
2015 | Tony Awards | Best Choreography | Casey Nicholaw |
2015 | Tony Awards | Best Costume Design of a Musical | Gregg Barnes |
2015 | Tony Awards | Best Direction of a Musical | Casey Nicholaw |
2015 | Tony Awards | Best Musical | Timothy Laczynski |
2015 | Tony Awards | Best Musical | Kyodo Tokyo Inc. |
2015 | Tony Awards | Best Musical | Wendy Federman |
2015 | Tony Awards | Best Musical | Barbara Freitag |
2015 | Tony Awards | Best Musical | LAMS Productions |
2015 | Tony Awards | Best Musical | Winkler/DeSimone |
2015 | Tony Awards | Best Musical | Kevin McCollum |
2015 | Tony Awards | Best Musical | Jujamcyn Theaters |
2015 | Tony Awards | Best Musical | JAM Theatricals |
2015 | Tony Awards | Best Musical | Robert Greenblatt |
2015 | Tony Awards | Best Musical | Dan Markley |
2015 | Tony Awards | Best Musical | Harris/Karmazin |
2015 | Tony Awards | Best Musical | Morris Berchard |
2015 | Tony Awards | Best Musical | Ronald Frankel |
2015 | Tony Awards | Best Musical | Jerry Frankel |
2015 | Tony Awards | Best Musical | Mastro/Goodman |
2015 | Tony Awards | Best Musical | CMC |
2015 | Tony Awards | Best Musical | Broadway Global Ventures |
2015 | Tony Awards | Best Musical | Something Rotten! |
2015 | Tony Awards | Best Orchestrations | Larry Hochman |
2015 | Tony Awards | Best Original Score (Music and/or Lyrics) Written for the Theatre | Karey Kirkpatrick |
2015 | Tony Awards | Best Original Score (Music and/or Lyrics) Written for the Theatre | Wayne Kirkpatrick |
2015 | Tony Awards | Best Performance by an Actor in a Featured Role in a Musical | Christian Borle |
2015 | Tony Awards | Best Performance by an Actor in a Featured Role in a Musical | Brad Oscar |
2015 | Tony Awards | Best Performance by an Actor in a Leading Role in a Musical | Brian d'Arcy James |
Videos