SpongeBob SquarePants musical to open on Broadway
Soon SpongeBob SquarePants will live not in a pineapple under the sea, but in the Palace Theater on Broadway.
SpongeBob SquarePants, a musical that features original music from a variety of pop and rock stars including David Bowie, Cyndi Lauper and John Legend, will begin Broadway performances on Nov 6, with opening night scheduled for Dec 4.
Tina Landau — a stalwart of the Steppenwolf Theater in Chicago, the city where SpongeBob
had its premiere last summer — conceived the show and will direct the Broadway production.
Among the roster of musicians Landau enlisted for the songs is Sara Bareilles, who wrote and is currently starring in Waitress
on Broadway. Additional artists include the Grammy winner Yolanda Adams, as well as the Flaming Lips, Lady Antebellum, and Steven Tyler and Joe Perry of Aerosmith.
Tom Kitt, composer of Next To Normal, will be the music supervisor and orchestrator. Kyle Jarrow — the television and stage writer who is also in the band Sky-Pony with his wife, the Tony-nominated actress Lauren Worsham — wrote the book.
Ethan Slater, who starred as SpongeBob in Chicago, will return in the title role for the New York transfer — his Broadway debut. Other cast members include Gavin Lee ( Mary Poppins) as Squidward, Lilli Cooper ( Spring Awakening) as Sandy Cheeks and Danny Skinner, also making his debut on Broadway, as Patrick.
Additional casting will be announced at a later date. The show will open at the Palace before construction begins on a major renovation that is years in the making and would involve lifting the theatre 9m to make room for retail space on Times Square. The Nederlander Organization, which owns the theatre, said that because the project was still in development, the Palace was available to book SpongeBob.