Has anyone actually ever READ "Smash"?
Has anyone actually ever READ "Smash"?
#1Has anyone actually ever READ "Smash"?
Posted: 5/24/14 at 11:50pm
Hi all-
just sorta been re-watching the good parts of Smash (various clips on youtube) before it got really bad and I was wondering if anyone had actually read the original premise Smash by Garson Kanin.
I know he based it loosely on his brief experience directing Funny Girl but is it worth a read? Trashy? What?
LegallyBroadway2
Broadway Star Joined: 8/19/10
#2Has anyone actually ever READ
Posted: 5/25/14 at 12:06am
Oh oh yes. Very good book.
It is sexy and scathing and just terribly exciting.
Read this book.
LegallyBroadway2
Broadway Star Joined: 8/19/10
#4Has anyone actually ever READ
Posted: 5/25/14 at 11:25amGarson Kanin was a fantastic writer (and director, and generally fantastic at everything he did). It's an engaging book, if not his best work. Don't expect to find SMASH the television series on the page. The show was really only thematically inspired by the book, and I believe the novel was only optioned the rights as a legal maneuver to use the name and skeletal premise.
"You travel alone because other people are only there to remind you how much that hook hurts that we all bit down on. Wait for that one day we can bite free and get back out there in space where we belong, sail back over water, over skies, into space, the hook finally out of our mouths and we wander back out there in space spawning to other planets never to return hurrah to earth and we'll look back and can't even see these lives here anymore. Only the taste of blood to remind us we ever existed. The earth is small. We're gone. We're dead. We're safe."
-John Guare, Landscape of the Body
#5Has anyone actually ever READ
Posted: 5/25/14 at 11:30amMy first thought when I saw the subject line was that the complete scripts of Smash were released.
"...everyone finally shut up, and the audience could enjoy the beginning of the Anatevka Pogram in peace."
#6Has anyone actually ever READ
Posted: 5/25/14 at 2:19pmOh, hey--I love this novel. When I was at NYU, I used to find used copies of it at the Strand and give them to theater people for cheap birthday presents.
#7Has anyone actually ever READ
Posted: 5/25/14 at 2:25pmSmash. Every time I think of that show, I just shake my head in disappointment. It had so much potential. But no, I never read the book. Maybe I will.
#8Has anyone actually ever READ
Posted: 5/25/14 at 3:14pm
It has nothing at all to do with the TV show.
#9Has anyone actually ever READ
Posted: 5/25/14 at 3:20pmYeah but I just read that "based on the novel by Garson Kanin" appears in each episode's closing credits.
AKarp2013
Broadway Star Joined: 7/25/11
#10Has anyone actually ever READ
Posted: 5/25/14 at 3:26pmThe only thing similar between the book and the TV show is the name "SMASH" and the premise of putting on a show. Nothing more, nothing less. Different characters, different plots and everything.
#11Has anyone actually ever READ
Posted: 5/25/14 at 3:30pmAt some TV site (ew? AVclub?) the recapper for Smash tried following along with the book. He gave u pretty early on...
#12Has anyone actually ever READ
Posted: 5/25/14 at 3:31pmI bet the different characters and different plots in the book are much better than on the TV show.
#13Has anyone actually ever READ
Posted: 5/25/14 at 5:09pm
For those who have read it, do you think the show would have been better if it followed the book more closely? I guess it's hard to say really, that second season was such a train wreck.
Thanks for the input everyone, I will try and find a copy! :)
Updated On: 5/25/14 at 05:09 PM
Sutton Ross
Broadway Legend Joined: 7/20/13
#14Has anyone actually ever READ
Posted: 5/25/14 at 5:13pm
It's actually available for 3.99 on Kindle, if you're interested.
Smash
LegallyBroadway2
Broadway Star Joined: 8/19/10
#15Has anyone actually ever READ
Posted: 5/25/14 at 6:02pmThe television program should have been the book. Verbatim. Only opinion, of course, as its a favorite read of mine.
