Jennifer Hudson Joins Smash's Broadway Producing Team

Jennifer Hudson—singer, actress, talk show host and claimer of the coveted EGOT status—has joined the producing team for the Broadway-bound musical Smash. Based on the Broadway-inspired NBC series, Smash is slated to open on Broadway in spring 2025, directed by five-time Tony Award winner Susan Stroman. Robert Greenblatt, Neil Meron and Steven Spielberg serve as lead producers. 

The project reunites Hudson with Smash composers Marc Shaiman and Scott Wittman, as well as producers Greenblatt and Meron, with whom she collaborated on NBC’s live televised production of Hairspray in 2016, performing as Motormouth Maybelle. Hudson also had a three-episode arc on Smash, playing two-time Tony Award winner Veronica Moore whose musical numbers included "On Broadway" (with Katharine McPhee), "Mama Makes Three," "I Got Love" and "I Can't Let Go." 

Hudson rose to fame as a finalist on the third season of American Idol, going on to win an Academy Award for her performance as Effie White in the 2006 film adaptation of Dreamgirls. On Broadway, she originated the role of Shug Avery in the 2015 Broadway revival of The Color Purple (opposite Cynthia Erivo), and won a Tony Award as part of the producing team for the 2022 musical A Strange Loop. She began hosting The Jennifer Hudson Show, a syndicated daytime talk show, in 2022. 

In addition to Tony winners Shaiman and Wittman, who created the songs for the television series and return to write the stage score, the musical adaptation of Smash features a book by Tony winner Bob Martin and Tony nominee Rick Elice. Smash’s Emmy-winning choreographer, Joshua Bergasse, also reprises his role for the stage production. 

According to press materials, many of the songs Shaiman and Wittman wrote for the television show—including the Emmy-nominated “Let Me Be Your Star”—will be used in the new musical. As in the TV series, the story will follow the process of mounting Bombshell, a musical about the life of Marilyn Monroe, but the stage version will also "depart liberally" from the series.