THE SPONGEBOB MUSICAL Poster and Plot Revealed
The SpongeBob Musical is coming to Broadway (and Chicago) and we have some new information that all you SpongeBob fans might be interested in, along with a poster that you can see above!
I think it’s so cool that they are bringing this hilariously crazy character to life in a stage production. The musical is being directed by Steppenwolf member Tina Landau, who also played a part in coming up with the idea to do this. This project has been slowly developing since 2008, when the director was first hired. Now it’s set to premiere in Chicago in June of this year. What have they been doing in preparing for this production all these years? Landau explained to EW:
“Before there was even a story, from very early on we did movement and physical workshops to explore the idea of whether we could really create these characters onstage without using literal representations of what they look like in the cartoon. The DNA is the same but the form is so radically different, we’re not approaching it literally. We’re not trying to take the cartoon and put it onstage. We’re trying to create a live theatrical event.”
I’m really curious to see what exactly they’ve come up with. The play was written by Kyle Jarrow and we also have a synopsis for the story to share with you:
The SpongeBob Musical follows a day in the fictional underwater town of Bikini Bottom, where the citizens have just learned that a nearby volcano named Mount Humongous will erupt at sundown the next day. Amid the antics and fantasies of the community over the ensuing 24 hours, SpongeBob takes it upon himself to save the day and rescue his city from certain destruction. It’s an original story not pulled from the television series, says Landau.
Landau went on to describe the entire production as “scrappy, inventive, and wacky." I wouldn’t expect to see anything less from SpongeBob! The director spoke about the design aesthetic of SpongeBob’s world that they created:
“It’s the same way that Bikini Bottom is. There’s a bucket, and someone says,‘That’s a restaurant,’ and so it’s [Plankton’s restaurant] the Chum Bucket. In our production, you might have a cluster of pool noodles and someone can say, ‘Look at that kelp,’ and it’s kelp. It’s a lot of unexpected materials that create our own makeshift, colorful, psychedelic world of Bikini Bottom.”
The music that will be used in the production comes from several talented people including Cyndi Lauper and The Flaming Lips, Steve Tyler and Joe Perry of Aerosmith, Panic! at the Disco, Lady Antebellum, They Might Be Giants, and even a song from late David Bowie. How cool is that!
The SpongeBob Musical will have its world premiere on June 7th at Chicago’s Oriental Theatre. From there, the limited engagement runs through July 3rd, 2016, and a Broadway run is expected in the 2016-17 season.