Nickelodeon aims for Broadway splash with SpongeBob musical
Network’s 10-year gamble brings Bikini Bottom to Great White Way stage
NEW YORK— 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 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.
“Don’t be insulted if we suddenly say, ‘Oh, pretend you’re playing, but don’t play,’ ” 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!” Landau said of the finale. “We just go, ‘OK 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 its most prized possession, with music by stars like John Legend and Cyndi Lauper, 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, Nickelodeon wants you to believe otherwise: as the theatre’s signage says, “The Broadway Musical for Everyone” — not just kids, or college students under the influence. But if sensory overload is the goal: mission accomplished.
The ongoing animated series 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 neighbour, 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 (U.S.) in retail merchandise sales.
Still, SpongeBob’s adenoidal voice and unyielding optimism can be- come grating over the course of a 30-minute TV show, let alone 2 1⁄
2 hours live.
Cyma Zarghami, the Nickelodeon president, was initially skeptical about the idea. “I was worried . . . it would look like a skip-and-a-wave show for little kids,” Zarghami said in an interview.
“I started watching the show for research,” 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 Hillenburg created Bikini Bottom, it was out of whole cloth: a brand-new universe from nothing. 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 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 — Landau held workshops, pairing traditional actors with clowns, acrobats, dancers and magicians.
Ethan Slater, a red-headed 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,” 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.’ ”
Three more workshops over four years, each featuring Slater, followed. (Kyle Jarrow, an offbeat musical-theatre writer, was brought in to write the book, which centres on SpongeBob trying to save Bikini Bottom from an erupting volcano.) Eventually the network gave the goahead and the musical had its debut at Chicago’s Oriental Theater in June 2016.
Now the show, which officially opens Dec. 4, faces the big challenge: convincing theatregoers that it isn’t a kid-centered commercial novelty.
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.
She seemed a bit embarrassed as he described his SpongeBob fandom, including a “Spongesquad” text message group he has with friends. “He sends me memes of SpongeBob weekly and I hate it,” Culkin, also 25, added with a sheepish laugh.
The explosion of confetti that 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.