A lot goes wrong in Broadway‘s new “Smash” musical: There’s a Method-acting lead, laxative-laced cupcakes and a trio of stars all vying to play Marilyn Monroe — but it’s all part of the show.
Based on the short-lived NBC series of the same name, this “Smash” tells a new story about the making of a Marilyn Monroe musical where everything falls apart. It stars Robyn Hurder as lead actress Ivy Lynn, Brooks Ashmanskas as frazzled director Nigel, John Behlmann as the heavy-drinking writer Jerry, Kristine Nielsen as Ivy’s Method coach Susan and more.
In the show, Ivy goes as Method as an actor possibly can to realistically play Marilyn Monroe, but she causes rehearsals for the team’s “Bombshell” musical to grind to a halt and gets on everyone’s last nerve. She misses the opening night performance, which causes her understudy Karen (Caroline Bowman) to take her place…except Karen accidentally eats a laxative-laced cupcake that was originally meant to sabotage Ivy. But the show must go on, so Nigel scrambles to find a last-minute replacement, and the hilarious hijinks continue.
Getty Images
Have so many disasters ever struck an actual opening night before? At the “Smash” premiere, the cast members shared real-life horror stories from their careers.
“Nothing that involved any bodily fluids,” Behlmann said. “When I was doing ‘Shucked,’ there was a gigantic cockroach that fell down from the sky in the middle of a scene and landed in our lead’s wig, and she couldn’t feel it. It crawled down her body and promptly died center stage and totally altered everyone’s choreography because they wouldn’t go near it. They danced around the middle and avoided it. Finally, some hero in the cast scooped it up and carried it off stage. I was not the hero. I was the confused one, wondering why no one was going to center stage.”
Hurder, whose “Smash” character’s Method acting turns her into the biggest diva Broadway has ever seen, shared her own embarrassing story.
“Definitely the worst mishap that ever happened to me on stage was when I was in the national tour of ‘Spamalot’ on the road. I was in the ensemble and we had these bikini tops that attached in the front, and when I did some of my choreography, the bikini top flew. That’s been burned in my brain for almost 20 years now,” she said.
And while nobody in the cast has gone Method, some of them shared their own experiences with co-stars that have gone all-in for a role.
“I haven’t, but sometimes it’s a joke in my house that I’m going so Method with [Ivy]. When I got sick, I had all these pill bottles on my dressing room table, and my husband was like, ‘Are you actually turning into Marilyn Monroe?’” Hurder added.
“Oh god, yes. That’s a given,” said Jacqueline B. Arnold, who plays money-obsessed producer Anita. “I can’t tell you names, but yes. It’s sometimes confusing as their castmate. You sometimes don’t know who you’re talking to, especially if there’s an accent involved.”
