Ken Davenport responds to SPONGEBOB musical: "Why This Broadway Bound musical worries me."- Page 3

[Sorry-Grateful]

Posted: 8/31/15 at 4:50pm

Next thing you know, shows like Dora the Explorer Live! and Pokemon Live! will just circle the wagons and camp out in a Broadway theater instead of embarking on national tours.

[Wilmingtom]

Posted: 8/31/15 at 4:50pm

Like any other show, if it's well done and people come to see it, then it will have been a good idea.  If badly done and no one wants to pay to see it, then it was a bad idea.  Tina Landau is pretty accomplished so I think I'll wait to see what they come up with before I draw judgement.  I didn't think the last week of Jesus's life was such a hot idea for a musical either.

[Phillypinto]

Posted: 8/31/15 at 4:53pm

yeah if its entertaining and has good music and makes me laugh, then im on board. I was very skeptical about Rocky til i saw it and loved it. But they also had good musical theatre writers and a great director

[Mister Matt]

Posted: 8/31/15 at 5:19pm

A broadway theatre has no place for a show where small children will scream at the stage.

 

It has in the past (or at least, that was the perception of every show aimed at children from Annie, to the Disney canon, to Seussical, to Chitty, to Shrek, to Matilda...).  And for over 100 years, it's been a place where adults scream at the stage, permissable at varying degrees depending on the era.

[gleek4114]

Posted: 8/31/15 at 10:42pm

I have very mixed feelings about this as show. I will for sure try to get to Chicago to see it. Part of me hopes it's a train wreck so I can say I saw it, and part of me wants it to be legitimately good so I can prove myself wrong (in my mind the former is most likely).

[Liza's Headband]

Posted: 9/1/15 at 8:50am

^ Wow! Okay!  What a difficult decision you have to make... Hope it doesn't torment you for the rest of your life. 

[Braniff Forever]

Posted: 9/1/15 at 11:14am

I do like to listen to Ken Davenport's podcast called The Producer's Perspective. It is free in iTunes and is very interesting and informative about producing on Broadway. But hey, money always wins out in a free market economy, so whether one producer likes or doesn't like the idea of a certain musical, money talks and the market will dictate what is shown on Broadway. 

[orangeskittles]

Posted: 9/1/15 at 11:30am

This is just saying: "throw us enough money and you can have a stage." It puts Broadway in the news in a lousy way.

 

^Wasn't this Ken Davenport's Godspell investment pitch?

 

 

[Brick]

Posted: 9/1/15 at 11:59am

I think he definitely has points. I agree Dora the Explorer Live is not what Broadway should be.

That said, I'm actually thrilled about this project because it's Tina Landau.

[Ranger Tom]

Posted: 9/1/15 at 12:11pm

SpongeBob on Ice sounds appropriate.  Of course, I'm still wondering why we have a revival of Spring Awakening coming up, so what do I know.

[Mister Matt]

Posted: 9/1/15 at 12:12pm

Nothing about this project sounds like a Dora the Explorer Live type of show.  It sounds like a book musical that will feature both an original book and original score, something generally sought after by the hard-core fans and academics of new musicals.  We have yet to hear songs, read a book synopsis or see design renderings.  So, I really don't get all the kerfuffle over the subject.  It's a lot of hand-wringing based on nothing but assumptions and conjecture.

[Hamilton22]

Posted: 9/1/15 at 12:21pm

I'm confused as to who the target audience is for this. Most of the kids that grew up loving Spongebob are now in their twenties and are nostalgic about the older episodes (1999-2004). Most don't seem to care for the newer episodes and of course there are little kids these days that like spongebob, so perhaps they are the target. I guess I just can't see parents shilling out big bucks for a tv show like Spongebob  when you have the Disney machine across the street with richer source materialized hits like Lion King and Aladdin. 

[haterobics]

Posted: 9/1/15 at 12:36pm

Hamilton22 said: "I'm confused as to who the target audience is for this."

 

Stoners?

[bjh2114]

Posted: 9/1/15 at 1:18pm

Ken Davenport should be the LAST person to say anything negative about this.  Hypocrisy at its finest.

[Kad]

Posted: 9/1/15 at 1:25pm

This project has also been in the works for a while; there were thinly disguised casting notices a year or two ago. The book is being written by Kyle Jarrow, a downtown writer (he wrote A Very Merry Unauthorized Children's Scientology Pagaent which debuted back in 2003- before Scientology's beliefs got mainstream traction- and which pretty much made Alex Timbers a notable name in directing).

There are quite a few reasons to believe this has some merit.

And Ken Davenport produces shlocky off-Broadway parodies of reality television, so, y'know.

[mikeyb16]

Posted: 9/1/15 at 2:00pm

Nickelodeon made an attempt on this before. They adapted a musical called "The Sponge Who Could Fly" which toured in Asia, Singapore, Australia and the UK. The UK Tour ended up cancelling a handful of venues due to poor ticket sales, despite being well received by critics.

[LizzieCurry]

Posted: 9/1/15 at 4:13pm

I'll save you all the googling (since I just did some): 
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Sponge_Who_Could_Fly#Musical_adaptation

[jnb9872]

Posted: 9/1/15 at 9:16pm

A few scattered thoughts:

Ken Davenport is the last person to throw stones here. 

That list of composers contributing to the score is surprisingly genre-diverse and very-accomplished. I agree with someone's earlier sentiment about Coulton and hoping his irreverent voice could be a connective tissue, but I think he tweeted that he only wrote one song for the show. Perhaps They Might Be Giants, having written a few children's music albums as well as their own decades-long career as intellectual musical goofballs, could be adding to that.

And, look... Bowie, Legend, Aerosmith, Lauper, etc... the producers here have garnered my interest by the impressive collaborators they've roped in. 

Along those lines, Tina Landau (and especially her quotes in the article I saw) has my interest piqued as well. These are some well-reasoned, thought-out goals for what they're up to. Whether they achieve them, well that's where the rubber meets the road for any show. But this could have been a much more hastily thrown-together cash grab. By the looks of this, they're putting honest-to-goodness work and craft into this. Who can say if it will be worth the effort, but I respect them for it. 

[MOUSTACHA]

Posted: 9/2/15 at 4:06pm

The amount of time and money put into Spongbob's development far exceeds that done by almost every other major producing entity currently active.  That, in itself, means it should absolutely come to Broadway with open arms.  If a producer is willing to spend as much as Viacom has to make sure they get it right, they should be given the chance.

 

The image you see in your head when you hear "Spongebob the musical" is not what will be on stage. I can't wait to see what the final product ends up being!

[Borstalboy]

Posted: 9/2/15 at 9:11pm

The amount of time and money put into Spongbob's development far exceeds that done by almost every other major producing entity currently active.  That, in itself, means it should absolutely come to Broadway with open arms.  If a producer is willing to spend as much as Viacom has to make sure they get it right, they should be given the chance.

Mmmmm!!  Corporate boot taste licky-good.

 

[Kad]

Posted: 9/3/15 at 10:04am

Oh, geez, as if a great deal of Broadway theatre- and theatre in general in America- isn't made possible through corporate support.

[Phillypinto]

Posted: 9/3/15 at 10:08am

im auditioning for this show!!

[MOUSTACHA]

Posted: 9/3/15 at 10:47am

Mmmmm!!  Corporate boot taste licky-good.

 

I mean... this IS commercial theatre, and, as it turns out, corporations are commercial entities.  I don't think you really want to be the judge and jury of what does and does not deserve to be on Broadway - if you're willing to put in the time and effort to develop something, you find the investors, convince the theatre owners, then who are we to say no?  I can point to countless shows that went through less and garnered no push-back for it's lack of preparation.  Just because you think 'Spongebob" is silly doesn't mean it isn't valid.

 

Updated On: 9/3/15 at 10:47 AM

[Phillypinto]

Posted: 9/3/15 at 11:17am

yea, but spongebob really? idk this just doesnt seem like a passion project to me at all. A lot of highly commercial shows on Broadway had a lot of passion and art behind them (The Lion King, Beautiful, Aladdin, even Shrek). Spongebob on broadway is just trying to get money. 

[MOUSTACHA]

Posted: 9/3/15 at 3:11pm

Phillypinto said: "yea, but spongebob really? idk this just doesnt seem like a passion project to me at all. A lot of highly commercial shows on Broadway had a lot of passion and art behind them (The Lion King, Beautiful, Aladdin, even Shrek). Spongebob on broadway is just trying to get money. 

 

"

This project has been so "under wraps" for years.  Just because you aren't passionate about the concept of spongebob doesn't mean those working on it don't have passion for the project.  And I would hate to suggest that Tina Landau or Tom Kitt or the laundry list of collaborators (David Bowie, Aerosmith, Cyndi Lauper, John Legend, The Flaming Lips) really have any reason to join a project like this for the money.  I mean, the money they'll make from this (especially the artists) is nothing in comparison to that generated by their established careers. 

So, again, just because we (me included) aren't super invested in this idea, doesn't make it a bad idea.  I think the proof will be in the pudding, and I suspect the pudding may well prove to be delicious.