Published: Monday, February 6, 2012
NBC's 'Smash' mixes backstage drama with song and dance
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NBC / Will Hart
Megan Hilty (left) portrays Ivy Lynn and Katharine McPhee is Karen Cartwright in the new series "Smash," premiering at 10 p.m. Monday on NBC.
All the world may be a stage, but Seattle's Megan Hilty, one of the stars of NBC's "Smash," has been around long enough to know that the most compelling action doesn't happen under the spotlights.
"The drama that happens behind the curtain is way more interesting than what's happening on the stage," said the actress, who appeared for several years in "Wicked."
NBC desperately hopes viewers agree. The beleaguered network is betting big on "Smash," which premieres at 10 tonight. It's a dazzling, boldly ambitious fictional saga about the making of a Broadway musical, or, as Hilty calls it, "a gorgeous, elaborate soap with some fantastic, splashy song-and-dance numbers."
The show is packed with creative firepower, including movie kingpin Steven Spielberg a sprawling cast featuring Anjelica Huston, Debra Messing, and "American Idol" Season 5 runner-up Katharine McPhee, who plays a Broadway newbie battling Hilty's character for the lead role in a production about Marilyn Monroe.
"Smash" is the kind of quality fare that NBC entertainment chief Robert Greenblatt hopes will pump some life back into a once-proud network that is now sputtering in fourth place. On the other hand, skeptics wonder if a mass audience will, indeed, be seduced by the lullaby of Broadway, or if the musical setting will appeal only to those few who regularly read "Playbill."
Spielberg is convinced the idea has legs. An executive producer on "Smash," he had long envisioned a TV series about the Broadway creative process, complete with "the fights, the arguments, the dreams, the egos, the disappointments and the energy" that go into it.
"I thought audiences would be able to relate to (it) whether or not they ever had seen a Broadway show," he told journalists last month during television's winter press tour. "This is about the drama of the characters."
"Smash," being the offbeat risk that it is, may have never made it to prime time had it not been for the success of a certain little musical comedy about high school songbirds, "Glee."
Tonight's instantly captivating pilot episode of "Smash" introduces viewers to the writing team of Julia (Messing) and Tom (Christian Borle), who are eager to craft a musical about America's iconic blond bombshell, even though a previous production about Monroe flopped.
The project draws interest from a producer going through a messy divorce (Huston) and a self-absorbed director (Jack Davenport).
As the casting process unfolds, two ingenues -- the naive novice, Karen (McPhee), and a veteran chorus girl, Ivy (Hilty) -- engage in a spirited showdown to play Marilyn.
The performances are solid all around, with McPhee and Hilty making strong impressions, and not just for their vocal power. Also thoroughly convincing is Messing, who dials things down from her "Will & Grace" days to play a woman torn between professional passion and family life.
And true to Spielberg's word, there is plenty of dramatic juice that will have universal resonance, including workplace rivalries, marital strife, sinister scheming and sexual tension.
Should "Smash" become a smash, producers have discussed turning the fictional Marilyn musical into an actual Broadway show.
"The drama that happens behind the curtain is way more interesting than what's happening on the stage," said the actress, who appeared for several years in "Wicked."
NBC desperately hopes viewers agree. The beleaguered network is betting big on "Smash," which premieres at 10 tonight. It's a dazzling, boldly ambitious fictional saga about the making of a Broadway musical, or, as Hilty calls it, "a gorgeous, elaborate soap with some fantastic, splashy song-and-dance numbers."
The show is packed with creative firepower, including movie kingpin Steven Spielberg a sprawling cast featuring Anjelica Huston, Debra Messing, and "American Idol" Season 5 runner-up Katharine McPhee, who plays a Broadway newbie battling Hilty's character for the lead role in a production about Marilyn Monroe.
"Smash" is the kind of quality fare that NBC entertainment chief Robert Greenblatt hopes will pump some life back into a once-proud network that is now sputtering in fourth place. On the other hand, skeptics wonder if a mass audience will, indeed, be seduced by the lullaby of Broadway, or if the musical setting will appeal only to those few who regularly read "Playbill."
Spielberg is convinced the idea has legs. An executive producer on "Smash," he had long envisioned a TV series about the Broadway creative process, complete with "the fights, the arguments, the dreams, the egos, the disappointments and the energy" that go into it.
"I thought audiences would be able to relate to (it) whether or not they ever had seen a Broadway show," he told journalists last month during television's winter press tour. "This is about the drama of the characters."
"Smash," being the offbeat risk that it is, may have never made it to prime time had it not been for the success of a certain little musical comedy about high school songbirds, "Glee."
Tonight's instantly captivating pilot episode of "Smash" introduces viewers to the writing team of Julia (Messing) and Tom (Christian Borle), who are eager to craft a musical about America's iconic blond bombshell, even though a previous production about Monroe flopped.
The project draws interest from a producer going through a messy divorce (Huston) and a self-absorbed director (Jack Davenport).
As the casting process unfolds, two ingenues -- the naive novice, Karen (McPhee), and a veteran chorus girl, Ivy (Hilty) -- engage in a spirited showdown to play Marilyn.
The performances are solid all around, with McPhee and Hilty making strong impressions, and not just for their vocal power. Also thoroughly convincing is Messing, who dials things down from her "Will & Grace" days to play a woman torn between professional passion and family life.
And true to Spielberg's word, there is plenty of dramatic juice that will have universal resonance, including workplace rivalries, marital strife, sinister scheming and sexual tension.
Should "Smash" become a smash, producers have discussed turning the fictional Marilyn musical into an actual Broadway show.
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