Hold On, Smash Is Coming Back in the Best Possible Way?!

NBC's musical drama will come to life once again, but on stage

By Chris Harnick Dec 18, 2014 4:00 PMTags
SMASHWill Hart/NBC

Fade in on a girl with a hunger for fame…one more time! Smash is back y'all! Well, sort of.

E! has confirmed Bombshell, the Marilyn Monroe musical at the heart of the beloved and short-lived NBC series, will come alive for a one-night-only benefit concert for The Actors Fund. The cast and venue for the special benefit have yet to be announced, but the show's producers—and the masterminds behind NBC's live musicals Peter Pan Live! and The Sound of Music Live!—Craig Zadan and Neil Meron are behind the revival of sorts. Marc Shaiman and Scott Wittman wrote 22 songs for the series that make up Bombshell.

Tickets for the show go on sale in early 2015 with the benefit taking place on Monday, June 15. Will Karen (Katharine McPhee) or Ivy (Megan Hilty) take on the role of Marilyn Monroe?! These are the questions.

Smash stars Jeremy Jordan, Krysta Rodriguez and Andy Mientus performed songs from Hit List, the musical introduced in the second season, at 54 Below in December 2013. The series lasted two seasons on NBC and also starred Debra Messing, Christian Borle, Anjelica Huston, Jack Davenport and Leslie Odom Jr. Hilty and McPhee played dueling stars both doing the role of Marilyn Monroe at various stages of the show. In the series finale, Hilty's Ivy took home a Tony for playing the role after McPhee's Karen went on to star in Hit List.

Songs "Let Me Be Your Star" and "Hang the Moon" were both nominated for Emmys. "Let Me Be Your Star," the song from the first episode, also received a Grammy nomination.

If the benefit is a success, we're ready to Kickstart a live staging on NBC a la Peter Pan and The Sound of Music.

More info here.

We'll leave you with this:

(E! and NBC are both part of the NBCUniversal family.)