Best Day Ever?

The musical adaptation of SpongeBob SquarePants, which opened on Broadway in 2017, is heading to the small screen. Nickelodeon will present a TV adaptation of the musical, performed with a live theatre audience. The musical will premiere on the Viacom network in December (exact date to come).

Much of the original company will reprise their nautical performances, including Tony Award nominee Ethan Slater, who made his Broadway debut as the title, high-energy sponge. Joining him are fellow Tony nominee Gavin Lee as Squidward Q. Tentacles, Danny Skinner as Patrick Star, Brian Ray Norris as Eugene Krabs, Wesley Taylor as Sheldon Plankton, and Christina Sajous as Sandy Cheeks.

Rounding out the ensemble will be Kyle Matthew Hamilton, Katie Lee Hill, Curtis Holbrook, L’ogan J’ones, Jai’len Josey, Kelvin Moon Loh, Lauralyn McClelland, Vasthy Mompoint, Bryonha Parham, Oneika Phillips, Jon Rua, JC Schuster, Abby C. Smith, Robert Taylor Jr., Allan Washington.

The show, rebranded as The SpongeBob Musical for its current national tour, features a book by Kyle Jarrow and an eclectic score from a variety of pop artists: Yolanda Adams, Steven Tyler and Joe Perry of Aerosmith, Sara Bareilles, Jonathan Coulton, Alexander Ebert of Edward Sharpe & The Magnetic Zeros, The Flaming Lips, Lady Antebellum, Cyndi Lauper, John Legend, Panic! At the Disco, Plain White T’s, They Might Be Giants, and T.I., as well as the late David Bowie and Tom Kenny (TV's original SpongeBob) and Andy Paley.

Tina Landau directed the inventive and unconventional staging, which offered human representations of the beloved characters rather than literal depictions from the familiar cartoon. The TV presentation reunites her with her Broadway creative team: music supervisor and orchestrator Tom Kitt, choreographer Christopher Gattelli, costume designer David Zinn, lighting designer Kevin Adams, projection designer Peter Nigrini, and sound designer Walter Trarbach.

The SpongeBob Musical: Live On Stage! is produced for TV by Austin Shaw and directed by Glenn Weiss. Nickelodeon Vice Presidents Paul J Medford and Susan Vargo serve as Executive Producers.