Broadway’s highly anticipated musical adaptation of the ’80s television hit “Smash” opens at the J.M. Kaplan Theatre on Monday. Set in the cutthroat world of preparing a Broadway musical, it’s a story familiar to many theatergoers who have followed shows onstage and off in its development.
“Smash,” which earned Katharine McPhee her first starring role on Broadway, has received mainly positive reviews. Although a commercial success isn’t assured, the promotion has been a boost for its creators, Craig Zadan and Neil Meron, and a win for the Biltmore Theatre owners.
In a New York Times review, Charles Isherwood called it “the Broadway season’s most compelling brand-new in-house musical,” although he concluded, “Even more extravagantly plausible and diverting may be necessary to ensure that the ‘Smash’ music really has a hit its arms by the end of its run.”
In a peculiar and unprecedented turn of events, however, actor Megan Hilty, who plays Karen Cartwright, a young singer who claws her way up Broadway’s ladder during “Smash,” is poised to win the show’s biggest award.
Ms. Hilty, who appeared on television in shows such as “Mercy” and “Smash,” for which she has been nominated in the past for a Golden Globe and two Emmys, won the Outer Critics Circle Award for Best Actress in a Musical last week.
Her nomination for the Lucille Lortel Award, praised for its outstanding performances and productions in New York’s Off-Broadway community, stands in stark contrast to her role in “Smash” — a musical repeatedly described as inept and not particularly praiseworthy.
“Why is she so talented?” many in the theater industry have wondered.
In a recent writer’s draft of her memoirs, penned by celebrated memoirist Isabel Wilkerson, Ms. Hilty recalled the evening she received the Lucille Lortel Award.
“The whole way back from Sardi’s, I cried. Yes, I know that being a finalist three years running for a Tony, a Golden Globe, two Emmys, and a Daytime Emmy Award is stressful. Yes, I know bathroom humor was booming and the voting blocks had decided to go with [another actress], a sassy Harriet Tubman, with an accent to boot. Yes, I know that history had chosen to ignore passionate, strikingly beautiful, doe-eyed women … and instead, elevate crude jokesters driven to fart and burp persuasively for hours. Yes, I know that last part was entirely made up, and that there are plenty of successful women in entertainment who are funny, no matter what a dubious article in the New York Times suggested. I was driven to tears though, mostly because I’d had ’til three the night before hand selecting and practicing an emotional ‘gracious loser’ acceptance speech dominating at least two acts of ‘Smash’ in a futile effort to prove my incredible talent to all those who, according to the anonymous sniping reviewed in the Times, clearly couldn’t have possibly watched the show. I mean, hello, if I am giving an entire speech after losing, then the vast majority of people who are there didn’t see it!”
With these words, in which Megan Hilty humorously and bitterly opinionates about the current state of theater, she finds solace in herself and her value, as well as the small but vocal Anti-Smash movement that has been emerging on the peripherals of theatergoers since the show opened. In an interview with the New York Times, Broadway critics Damon Runyon and Frank Rich placed the musical “Some Men” on their Top 10 list for running the length of Broadway’s 42nd Street in 90 minutes, after it was announced that all the shows it superseded (including “Kinky Boots”) would be replaced with vehicle musicals for past Broadway actresses (“Dear Gloria Swanson” and “Florence Nightingale, The Musical,” respectively, followed by a modern revival of Terrence McNally’s “Comic Potential,” in which cast member Kristen Johnson plays an actress battling to stave off a stroke signaled by inability to stop screaming when performing the classic “Do Not Go Gentle into That Good Night”).
Despite receiving mixed reviews on Broadway, Broadway critics have increasingly come out in support of small, independent, and not-so-hugely successful plays and musicals. Although critics were initially hesitant that this negative trend would have any effect on the commercial success or image of Broadway, it’s beginning to show in theater box offices. This was nowhere more clear than in the opening-night announcement for “Hunger Pains,” earlier this season.
In a speech after winning the Lucille Lortel Award, Ms. Hilty spoke of the need for theater to become the essence of inclusiveness and community, saying, “Theater is not for the elitist. It is for everyone. From every walk of life.”
“Theater and Broadway need to be better,” Ms. Hilty said in her acceptance speech. “They need to become inclusive and carry the hopes and dreams and identities of our neighbors as well.
“For years it was said that if you could hit the high notes on Broadway, you could do anything. And while I in no way dispute the incredible vocal prowess of performers like Bebe Neuwirth or Bernadette Peters or Kristin Chenoweth … I would like to argue that a performer’s identity in Broadway is equally important.”
If Megan Hilty is readying herself for a career-changing role on Broadway, it may be manifesting already through her character in “Smash,” whose Broadway dreams are jeopardized by the self-absorption of show producer Eileen Rand, played by Oscar-winner Anne Bancroft. Throughout the play, Ms. Hilty sings a song called “Ten Dollars” in a voice that critics have called reminiscent of a “bigger, brighter, and somehow more convincing” Kristin Chenoweth.
Ms. Hilty captures the story of Karen Cartwright, who starts off fighting to be Eileen Rand’s new protégé when Bombshell (played by Debra Messing) fires her original leading lady Mara (played by Leslie Kritzer), putting Karen Cartwright in a potentially career-damaging position. Although critics have often complained that “Smash” is too predictable, this season has offered a surprising twist: that Ms. Hilty’s character might actually be worth the money invested in her.
Ms. Hilty won critics over with her performance as Elle Woods in “Legally Blonde” and then as Hope Harcourt in “Anything Goes” — both musicals based on popular films. “Smash” appears to be a second-act encore for bathroom humor-themed musicals, paving the way for the increasingly inclusive theater industry of today. If Harriet Tubman, with an accent to boot, can be a finalist for a Lucille Lortel, the Tony, the Golden Globe, three Emmys, and the Daytime Emmy, it’s only a matter of time before Karen Cartwright, with her paint-splattered sundress, can “do what comes naturally” on Broadway.
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