Smash-ing News! Bombshell Stage Adaptation is Officially In The Works

Brace yourselves...The drama, the laughter, the tears just like pearls are heading to the stage for real! After a huge amount of speculation, Bombshell, the fictional Marilyn Monroe musical from the NBC drama Smash, is officially being developed for the stage!

The news comes in the wake of the much-buzzed about one-night-only concert earlier this month. Marc Shaiman and Scott Wittman, who penned the songs for Bombshell on screen, remain on board for the project, with Shaiman serving as composer and co-lyricist and Wittman as co-lyricist. On the Town’s Joshua Bergasse, who won an Emmy for his work on Smash and co-directed the recent concert, will serve as choreographer for the production. A book writer will be announced soon.

Bombshell on the stage will be brought to you by a stellar team, including Smash executive producers Craig Zadan, Neil Meron and Steven Spielberg, along with Universal Stage Productions. In short, this is happening, everyone, although we have no timeline for it.

We're still a long way from casting, but the series starred American Idol runner-up Katharine McPhee and Broadway favorite Megan Hilty as the Marilyn hopefuls, as well as Debra Messing, Christian Borle, Jeremy Jordan, Anjelica Huston, Andy Mientus and Jack Davenport.

Smash premiered in February 2012 and followed the conception, development and Broadway life of the Marilyn Monroe bio-musical. Among the ladies to have donned the platinum blonde wig during Bombshell’s course were Ivy Lynn, a Broadway alum looking for her big break (Hilty), Karen Cartwright, a wide-eyed newcomer from Iowa (McPhee) and film star Rebecca Duvall (Uma Thurman, because of course). The show’s second season introduced Kyle and Jimmy (Mientus and Jordan), a singer-songwriter duo who write Hit List, a new Broadway-bound musical that ultimately competes with Bombshell at the (fake/super campy) Tony Awards. The series concluded after two seasons in May 2013.

A Marilyn Monroe musical has been seen on Broadway once before; in 1983 the short-lived Marilyn: An American Fable played 34 previews and 17 performances.