Marilyn Monroe News

BC and Columbia Records announced that the soundtrack from the first season of NBC's musical hit SMASH (Mondays, 10-11 p.m. ET) will be released on May 1.

Ah, Spring is in the air and The Schoolhouse Theater is planning to present a four-course meal of tantalizing fare. The following is a calendar of Main Stage theater performances and special events planned now through June.

On the April 2 episode of SMASH, Karen (Katharine McPhee) and Ivy (Megan Hilty) find themselves in competition again - this time for an orange juice commercial, but the two actresses let loose after a long, hard, work day in the middle of Times Square with their rendition of Rihanna's 'Cheers (Drink to That)'.

As BroadwayWorld previously reported, stage and screen star Frank Langella, just penned his first memoir, which includes stories about Elizabeth Taylor, Laurence Olivier, William Styron, Marilyn Monroe, Arthur Miller and Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis, and more. Titled: 'Dropped Names,' the book is now available at Amazon.com. Check out what Langella had to say about the book on today's 'The Today Show' below!

Casting has been announced for the world premiere of HEAT WAVE: THE JACK COLE PROJECT, a new musical entertainment set to debut at Queens Theatre (14 United Nations Avenue South in Flushing Meadows Corona Park) with performances starting on May 3rd 2012.

Sporadically shedding its former skin as a mainly musical endeavor, last night's "The Coup" episode of NBC's musical dramedy series SMASH stepped outside the box and presented a drama-focused show heavy on the plot and light on the musical numbers - with surprisingly strong results, believe it or not. As has become abundantly apparent, in the seven episodes up until this point, SMASH seems to have excelled in its musical sequences which floated high, flying, adored (like Eva Peron in EVITA) above everything else; enlivening the proceedings where the story fell short - usually, with Ivy (Megan Hilty) dominating the Marilyn Monroe show-within-the-show songs and Karen (Katharine McPhee) making the very most of an impressive melange of pop covers - but, as penned by Scott Burkhardt and directed by GLEE veteran Paris Barclay, "The Coup" showed that SMASH has legs and can sustain a character/plot-focused story from time to time, too. And, anyway, it's hard to complain too much about a lack of songs when we were presented with perhaps the most unique and stylized pop musical number to date in the form of the Top 40-ready Ryan Tedder-written potential Marilyn burlesque routine - that is, if Derek (Jack Davenport) takes the show-within-the-show in an entirely new direction and leaves Tom (Christian Borle) and Julia (Debra Messing) by the wayside. That potential prospect seems highly unlikely, though - to say the very, very least. Speaking of high, "The Coup" flew the coop as far as daring to do what many may have thought unlikely or impossible - namely, weaving in almost seamless, fully-integrated musical sequences such as Ivy & company's down and dirty bowling alley cover song set to the funky 60s sounds of Sly & The Family Stone's "Dance To The Music", or, (almost) effortlessly managing to make a contemporary song in a musical theatre milieu actually function (more or less) and come alive in the form of the sexy and titillating 'Touch Me'. Yes, "The Coup" stylistically diverged from what has come before on SMASH, but the more risks taken, the more rewards reaped. Definitely don't count all the eggs in the SMASH basket before they're hatched!

On the March 26th episode of the NBC musical drama series SMASH entitled 'The Coup' Eileen (Anjelica Huston) finds time to settle into her new hip Lower East Side apartment with the help of her new best friend, Ellis and her daughter Katie (actress Grace Gummer) who pays a surprise visit from India.

Next week on SMASH, the team deals with what happens after the workshop of Marilyn, Karen becomes an accomplice in Derek's shady strategy, Frank does his best to put Juliet at ease and Eileen receives a surprise visitor. Watch the preview clips of the episode below!

On the March 26th episode of the NBC musical drama series SMASH entitled 'The Coup' Eileen (Anjelica Huston) finds time to settle into her new hip Lower East Side apartment with the help of her new best friend, Ellis and her daughter Katie (actress Grace Gummer) who pays a surprise visit from India.

Deadline reports that SMASH creator and executive producer Theresa Rebeck will step down as showrunner for the television show before it returns for its recently announced second season. Rebeck will remain an executive producer of the show, but will not be as extensively involved in the day-to-day production of the series.

NBC has renewed its critically acclaimed musical drama "Smash" (Mondays, 10-11 p.m. ET) for a second season, it was announced today by Robert Greenblatt, Chairman of NBC Entertainment.

Today we are continuing BroadwayWorld's extensive coverage of NBC's hit musical drama series SMASH with a new entry in our ever-expanding collection of interviews with the cast, creative team and guest stars of the Broadway-based show - don't forget to check out the previous InDepth InterView with songwriters Marc Shaiman and Scott Wittman, as well (available here) - by talking to the leading lady of the show-within-the-show on SMASH itself all about her role on the series; the blonde bombshell of BOMBSHELL, Megan Hilty. In this candid conversation, Hilty and I discuss portraying a musical Marilyn Monroe and the volatile Broadway star playing her, Ivy Lynn, as well as her own personal experiences working on SMASH as we look ahead to the upcoming episodes which will feature the biggest musical sequence on the series so far and will also include guest appearances by Norbert Leo Butz, Marc Kudisch, Uma Thurman and more as BOMBSHELL heads towards its long-awaited big Boston tryout for the season finale. Additionally, Hilty and I take a look back at her prior musical theatre appearances, winning hearts the country over in her starring roles in WICKED and 9-TO-5 on Broadway, in LA and on tour - both under the direction of master director Joe Mantello - and, also, take a look ahead to the forthcoming Encores! GENTLEMEN PREFER BLONDES, which she will be headlining later this Spring. Plus, Hilty shares her experiences working with this week's SMASH guest star and Tony-winning legend Bernadette Peters and reflects on her forthcoming Disney animated film in the TINKER BELL series that features another dynamic diva, her SMASH co-star and fellow participant in this column, Oscar-winner Anjelica Huston (our interview coming up next week) - as well as touching on DOROTHY OF OZ (co-starring Lea Michele), her new animated TV project for Nickelodeon - ROBOTS & MONSTERS - and first news of a solo album coming soon. All of that and much, much more!

egyufCheck out this sneak preview of the cast in costume for HELLO NORMA JEANE by Dylan Costello. The show is one of the five finalists in the 2012 Great Gay Play and Musical Contest and will be performed on Saturday, April 14, 7:30 at Center on Halsted.

Milwaukee Chamber Theatre (MCT) presents the classic romantic comedy BUS STOP by William Inge, April 12-29, 2012. The production will be a collaborative venture with the University of Wisconsin - Parkside (UWP) theatre department with at least 25 students and faculty serving as actors, designers and production personnel. BUS STOP performs in the Broadway Theatre Center's Cabot Theatre in Milwaukee's Historic Third Ward.

When a big Broadway star like Bernadette Peters makes her way onto a national TV program, Broadway babies await it with abated breath. Yet, when a big Broadway star like Bernadette Peters appears on an actual musical TV series like SMASH, Broadway babies have reason to throw an all-out bacchanal - and, last night, they most certainly had a reason cause celebre. While GLEE has spoiled us with a plethora of guest stars from Broadway and Hollywood over the course of its three seasons - Kristin Chenoweth, Idina Menzel, Carol Burnett and Patti LuPone among them - the presence of two-time Tony Award-winner Peters - to say nothing of the forthcoming appearances by Norbert Leo Butz and Marc Kudisch - is a gift from the theatrical gods that instantly makes SMASH must-see-TV for the theatrically attuned among us (which, let's be honest, is most of us). Playing Ivy Lynn's blithely selfish and calculating former star of a mother, Leigh, Peters wrought every last ounce of bravado out of her bravura performance recreation of "Everything's Coming Up Roses" from GYPSY - a show she famously starred in under the direction of Sam Mendes earlier this century - and made her thorny scenes with Megan Hilty blossom; her overall star turn giving the entire affair a cold, brusque but all-too-believable bloom - ice in veins all too tangibly real to feel. The tension was certainly thick for the first workshop performance of the show-within-the-show on SMASH, as well, but Hilty still managed to set fire to her scenes and songs - and McPhee shows considerable promise with her burgeoning pop music career (and next week's Ryan Tedder-composed "Touch Me" sequence seems certain to deliver on the sultry, sexy siren of song front as McPhee comes closer to getting the role of Marilyn). And, speaking of songs knocked out of the park for the umpteenth time by this all-star musical team responsible for SMASH, besides the slowed down grand slam ballad version of "Let Me Be Your Star" - given a bluesy Broadway belt only the very best, like Hilty, could possibly provide - we were also treated to a striking and wholly stylistically unique new Marilyn Monroe/Joe DiMaggio song in the form of the arresting "On Lexington & 52nd Street", another homerun to tick off on the perfect scorecard for songwriters Marc Shaiman and Scott Wittman on SMASH so far; Will Chase's best (and, apparently, last) showcase. Film noir with a pulsating, almost atonal, steely and terse tinge, this is the sort of character number that seamlessly presents plot development and character exposition simultaneously in a purely, thrillingly theatrical manner and the type of dramatic and musical merging of storytelling SMASH excels at most of all, time after time after time after time. While "Everything's Coming Up Roses" was a strong cover of a classic Broadway barn-burner on account of Peters, "On Lexington & 52nd Street" expertly showcased the type of entertainment entity SMASH can ultimately be at its very best, firing on all axels - and how utterly enthralling in its layers of meta-narratives the real-life/showbiz soap saga that make it all come together it can fascinatingly be. Additionally, the workshop musical montage was the best example yet of how excitingly combustible and hot SMASH can really be when the boiler at its core is at full blast as it was sporadically last night in the appropriately titled "The Workshop" episode - almost always fueled by the simply spectacular songs for the show-within-the-show.

Every once in a great while, a person comes across a play, musical, cabaret, or other production that is so inspiring, so magnetic, so unique, with a passionate performance, stellar direction, beautiful music, and ingenious sets that truly leaves the audience both captivated and inspired. My Life with Men... And Other Animals playing at the 45th Street Theatre does just that.

Since NBC's musical drama series SMASH is kicking into high gear as the Marilyn Monroe musical that forms the core of the show's story approaches its first workshop presentation on Monday night's episode - with the highly awaited appearance of Broadway legend Bernadette Peters coming next week, as well; playing the mother of the Marilyn musical star, Ivy Lynn (Megan Hilty) - now is the ideal opportunity to, well, "Fade in on a girl / With a hunger for fame / And a face and a name to remember," to quote Marc Shaiman and Scott Wittman's crown jewel in a diadem of a songstack for the show-within-the-show, BOMBSHELL. The show-within-the-show is better that most scores on Broadway these days and that is a credit to the Tony-winning tunesmiths and their ability to make musical theatre that is polished and professional, yet totally fun, bawdy and accessible, as well. Look no further than this week's "History Is Made At Night" or last week's "Let's Be Bad" - to say nothing of the pilot's twofer of titanic theatrical prowess in the form of "The National Pastime" and the afore-quoted "Let Me Be Your Star". Plus, we have to remember, SMASH has not one Marilyn, but two, so the future possibilities of who will be singing these songs and how they will be presented is totally unknown. As we shall see in the clips below, "Let Me Be Your Star" will now have its third iteration on the show, acting as the opening number in the workshop presentation as Ivy Lynn belts it to the rafters, ballad-style - not unlike the Karen/Ivy stage sequence presented in Episode 2 as a dream. Using just the example of "Star", we can see how rich and rewarding it is to further explore the depths of drama and heights of wit amply apparent in the sometimes caustic, sometimes campy and always enjoyably, embraceable unique work of Shaiman & Wittman on their songs for SMASH. The story setting them up, drama surrounding and contained within them - with the meta-narrative of the behind-the-scenes going on we are privy to acting as another layer - makes the production numbers the most brightly glittering stars of the SMASH universe. Katharine McPhee's "Somewhere Over The Rainbow", "Call Me" and "Rumor Has It", as well as Hilty's "Crazy Dreams", were all viable and entertaining covers in their own right, yet the original songs are what make SMASH really sing - and zing, sting and ring-a-ding-ding.

Yesterday, I had the exceptional privilege of talking to Oscar-winning stage and screen star Anjelica Huston and Broadway sensation Megan Hilty all about the new NBC musical series SMASH and their roles in it, and, while both their complete Spotlight On SMASH InDepth InterViews will be coming in full next week, we have some breaking news to share with you now that is certain to excite the many SMASH fans here on BroadwayWorld and beyond!

Joshua Bergasse, choreographer of NBC's musical drama SMASH, has found an outlet for the sort of work inspired by the old MGM musicals he grew up watching. "Those old shows used dance as part of the story,' he said, 'and I try to make the dance sequences part of the SMASH story."

Tensions are rising between Smash's Karen Cartwright and Ivy Lynn after Karen was asked to preview a new vision for MARILYN The Musical and Ivy was informed that her replacement was inevitable. In this week's upcoming episode, it seems the tables will start to turn, as Karen and Ivy bond in Times Square. BroadwayWorld visited the Times Square set back in December when the episode was filmed to get some behind-the-scenes footage and interviews with the team. Check out a preview of what's to come below!