Smash

Broadway fans had a love-hate relationship with Smash, NBC's campy backstage series about the making of a musical about Marilyn Monroe, but everyone agreed that the show's highlights were its original songs by the Hairspray team of Marc Shaiman and Scott Wittman. Many of those numbers will also be featured in this original adaptation by Rick Elice (Jersey Boys) and Bob Martin (Boop!), directed by Susan Stroman (The Producers) and choreographed once again by Joshua Bergasse. Robyn Hurder and Caroline Bowman star as Ivy and Karen, the story's competing would-be Marilyns, and the TV version's Krysta Rodriguez; other attractions include two of Broadway's most delightful comic actors, Brooks Ashmanskas and Kristine Nielsen, and two of its studliest muffins, John Behlmann and Casey Garvin.