Top songwriters on board for The SpongeBob Broadway musical
David Bowie, John Legend, Cyndi Lauper, Lady Antebellum, and Steven Tyler and Joe Perry of Aerosmith have all contributed to musical based on hit children's TV series
With an original score by an incongruous group of music luminaries including David Bowie, John Legend, Cyndi Lauper, Lady Antebellum, and Steven Tyler and Joe Perry of Aerosmith, the animated series SpongeBob SquarePants is to become a Broadway musical in the 2016-17 season in New York.
But the denizens of Bikini Bottom will sing for the first time in Chicago next summer.
"SpongeBob has transformed television, fashion and the art community," says Russell Hicks, president of content development and production for the Nickelodeon television channel. "The theatre will be next."
Thus the pre-Broadway world premiere of SpongeBob The Musical will begin performances on June 7, 2016, at Chicago's Oriental Theatre, playing in Chicago for at least a month.
The show then will move to Broadway, probably in autumn. It is co-conceived and directed by the Steppenwolf Theatre ensemble member Tina Landau, with a book penned by Kyle Jarrow and music supervision by the Broadway composer Tom Kitt, whose primary job is to wrangle and coalesce the work of a number of rock stars, each writing one song for the musical.