Sara Bareilles Is Latest Songwriter to Board Spongebob Musical



The new musical makes its world premiere in Chicago in June.



Yolanda Adams, Sara Bareilles and Alex Ebert of Edward Sharpe & The Magnetic Zeros will write original songs for the Broadway-bound The SpongeBob Musical.

They join a cadre of contemporary writers who are also adding to the show's score, including Steven Tyler and Joe Perry of the band Aerosmith, Tony winner Cyndi Lauper (Kinky Boots), They Might Be Giants, Jonathan Coulton, Dirty Projectors, The Flaming Lips, John Legend, Lady Antebellum, Panic! At the Disco, Plain White T's and T.I., with an additional song by David Bowie and additional lyrics by Jonathan Coulton.

The production's tryout will begin previews June 7 at the Oriental Theatre in Chicago, with a limited run scheduled through July 3. The production is co-conceived and directed by Tina Landau (Superior Donuts, Bells Are Ringing), and Tony Award winner Christopher Gattelli (Newsies) will choreograph.

The SpongeBob Musical will be part of the "Broadway In Chicago" subscription series. Group tickets for 10 or more are now on sale by calling Broadway In Chicago Group Sales at (312) 977-1710. Individual tickets for The SpongeBob Musical will go on sale March 13. For more information visit BroadwayInChicago.com.

Broadway dates, theatre and ticket information have not been announced.

The cast features Ethan Slater as SpongeBob SquarePants, Gavin Lee as Squidward, Nick Blaemire as Plankton, Lilli Cooper as Sandy Cheeks, Danny Skinner as Patrick, Gaelen Gilliland, Juliane Godfrey, Curtis Holbrook, Stephanie Hsu, Jesse JP Johnson, L’ogan J’ones, Emmy Raver-Lampman, Mark Ledbetter, Kelvin Moon Loh, Lauralyn McClelland, Vasthy Mompoint, JC Schuster, Allysa Shorte, Abby C. Smith, Jason Michael Snow and Allan K. Washington.

Spanning nine seasons on Nickelodeon, SpongeBob SquarePants has had his fair share of underwater adventures. But, on Broadway, he's going to have to save the world.

"I know this sounds insane, but it's basically SpongeBob Apocalypse," book writer Kyle Jarrow (A Very Merry Unauthorized Children's Scientology Pageant, Whisper House) told Playbill.com. "If you can imagine the movie 'Armageddon' with SpongeBob as like the main character, essentially saving the world, that is… It's not about an asteroid, but other than that it's basically SpongeBob has to save the world from certain destruction."



"All of the musicians got a brief on where their song fits in the story, so they weren't randomly writing songs on the topic of SpongeBob," Jarrow explained. "They knew where it fit in the story."

He added, "SpongeBob is super fun. It's obviously family-friendly; it's got like a hipster humor to it as well, but I think there's an opportunity to say something that actually matters about the way that we live now and about the way that fear can make people make decisions that are maybe not the smartest decisions."

Tom Kitt (Next to Normal, If/Then) provides music supervision for the show and, according to Jarrow, is "making it sound cohesive."

He added, "To be a book writer, where you have, I think, 14 different songwriters, it's just a crazy beast. It's been really wild, but it's super awesome. It's just a really complicated animal, so it's been this fun process of figuring out how to get the songs to fit."

