An early ad for Smash’s Broadway run promised, “If you loved the TV series, it’s exactly what you want. And if you didn’t, we changed everything.” And while the stage show does pull from the songs and general premise of the cult-classic NBC series — following the tumultuous making of the Marilyn Monroe musical Bombshell — it’s a different beast altogether. The story, the characters, and even the genre are all vastly different, but that’s what ultimately frees it from the shackles of an intense fandom’s expectations.
It’s a new Smash, but one holdover is Krysta Rodriguez, the sole cast member from the series to also star in this Broadway adaptation. Rodriguez joined the show for its second season in 2013, coming off of Broadway roles in Spring Awakening and The Addams Family, and played Karen’s roommate and Hit List co-star Ana Vargas. The series was already under an intense microscope, which made for a difficult experience. “People were writing about the show, they were dissecting the show, they were sometimes bullying the show, and we had to be in the fray,” she says. It wasn’t until after the show was canceled later that year that she started to better understand the show’s cult adoration, which has continued ever since — so much so that the short-lived series was able to justify a move to Broadway 12 years later. But with this new iteration of Smash, Rodriguez gets to jump from Hit List over to the Bombshell team. In fact, Hit List — a scrappy, Rent-esque rival to the glitzier Bombshell — isn’t a factor at all in the stage show, where Rodriguez plays one of Bombshell’s songwriters, Tracy. It’s a new take on the role Debra Messing played on the series, without the botched adoption or affair with an actor — but one key similarity remains: “I had to have a scarf!”
This show has the difficult task of explaining what it is both to diehard Smash fans as well as new Broadway audiences who have never seen an episode. How do you bridge that gap?
When we were getting ready to put the show up, I almost thought we might be more accepted by people who didn’t know the show at all. It’s a Rick Elice, Bob Martin new musical, which Susan Stroman directed, with music by Marc Shaiman and Scott Wittman. If that was billed under any other name, you’d be rushing to see that. It’s hard because everyone’s written Bombshell in their mind already, they’ve filled in the blank of the TV show, so doing Bombshell would be a fool’s errand. You have to do something that tells them what they’re interested in seeing, rather than trying to make what we think they’re interested in seeing. So I think it was a great idea to just do a huge swing. I always describe it to fans of the show as Smash fan fiction. It’s characters you like in a somewhat similar universe, but in a different sort of storyline.
You’re one of the few people, and the only main cast member, who worked on both the TV show and stage show — does that give you some unique insight into the world of Smash?
I’m well acquainted with the meta-ness of it all. Susan Stroman said towards the end of previews, “I’ve never heard the word meta before this, and I don’t ever wanna hear the word meta again.” There was a time when things were going mad, as they always do — not as insane as our show — but I saw the writers that were kind of new to the series and I was like, “Oh guys, you’re learning now that Smash is always Smash-ing.”
Were you surprised when they first reached out to you about doing this production?
I’m still surprised, I don’t know how I got here. I was a young thing new on the scene back during the series, so I feel really grateful that I was acknowledged as the performer I now am. Debra Messing taught me comedy when I was growing up, like Will & Grace is part of the holy text of comedy, so to not only have that mentor, but then to be stepping into the part that she created, it really is a dream job and a dream role.
Steven Spielberg showed up at the first reading. We were like, “Oh, hi!” That was like, okay, this is really getting a stamp of approval. When Stroman joined on, I was like, absolutely, I wanna be in the room with her. I’m five-foot-four, so it’s rare that I could be in a room for a Susan Stroman musical, because she’s got the leggy girls. So if I can be in a room with her and do high jinks and jokes and pratfalls, then I’m a happy girl.
How do you look back at your experience making the TV show?
When I was in it before, it really was not easy. We hit the Zeitgeist when a million other things were converging. The advent of the DVR, so people didn’t know how to count ratings, the advent of Twitter and livetweeting, the culture of recaps — that was all new. I remember being at the premiere and seeing someone tweeting something terrible about me and tagging me in it, and being like, “Why would they do that?” It was so confusing. So it was like, okay, people are talking about this in a certain way, we need to pull the cord and get out. But once it was gone everyone went, “Wait, what’d you do with my favorite show?” And we were like, “We thought you hated it?”
It really wasn’t until the show was over, I was doing First Date at the time, I went out to the stage door and someone said, “We loved Smash,” and I was like, “You did?” It was the first time anyone had said that, really. And I know that’s not what was happening, but we were in the fray of the negativity around it. But every day since that day, someone has said how much they loved Smash.
I’d heard about Kerry Butler doing one of the workshops — is it true she ended up having to cover two roles?
Oh my God, yes. It was the best. First of all, Kerry Butler is a hero — Kerry Butler for president. Robyn Hurder had COVID, so they brought Kerry in, and then that morning the person playing Karen also couldn’t come in. All of a sudden Kerry is doing a show she didn’t rehearse for at all, and she’s standing there reading Ivy and then turning to the side and reading Karen and then turning to the side and reading Ivy. I literally was like, this is the show. Change everything — the show is that Ivy is actually insane, and it’s a one-woman show. At the end we pull back and they’re in an insane asylum and Susan the acting coach is actually the nurse, and we’re inside Bellevue the whole time. I became like manically inspired by this insane moment. Obviously that’s not what we decided to do …
They can do that for the revival.
I think Rick Elice said that while the TV show was a drama, actually putting up a show where things start to go wrong is quite funny. It’s absurd and farcical, like Kerry Butler speaking to herself in the middle of the rehearsal — you couldn’t dramatize that. If you make it comedic, it’s actually more aligned with how a show gets made.
Julia’s scarves became a hallmark of the series, and you’re now carrying that torch on stage. How was it decided that Tracy would also be rocking scarves?
We really don’t reference that much about the series, but the scarves were infamous. When we did the workshop, we just wore one costume and we clothed ourselves, so I brought in a scarf. And then when we were doing fittings for Broadway, we were like, let’s do two or three of them up top just to get it out of the way, but they were so useful. They cover up an outfit underneath, they’re easier for a reveal, they look chic — it just worked. Even my formal wear at the end has a scarf. We’re reclaiming the jabs they got on the series.
You get to perform “Second Hand White Baby Grand” — was it exciting getting to bring that song to the stage in this brand-new context?
People remember the big numbers, but I love being the first slow song of the show. I feel like that scene is where we get to kind of settle in as characters and the audience gets to rest their ear on something that they’re ready to lean in for, and not just be stimulated by a lot of exposition, meeting a bunch of characters, and seeing a big number. And so I feel really lucky to be the one to be in charge of that moment and guide the audience.
You also have your own interior-design business, and you’ve designed the dressing rooms for your former Smash co-stars Jeremy Jordan and Megan Hilty — what was your inspiration designing your own at the Imperial?
It was definitely Tracy inspired. I try to do as much character work as possible, which sometimes gets challenging because mine and Tracy’s styles are close but not exactly the same. But my inspo around Tracy is very Nancy Meyers, Meg Ryan — a time when payphones still existed on the Upper West Side. I’ve tried to make her study where she writes, so it’s got a lot of soft tones, a lot of curvy shapes.
Can we expect to see you when Hit List inevitably comes to Broadway?
I will be the first one there. We got to do a little concert at 54 Below, gosh, ten-plus years ago. We’d have to do some twist to it because I don’t think we could do Hit List, but it would be so fun to do something.
A show about the making of Hit List?
Exactly. Hopefully everyone survives this time.