The SpongeBob Musial: Live On Stage! will air on Nickelodeon December 7. Ahead of television special, Tony nominees Tina Landau and Ethan Slater stopped by the Playbill studio to share five things to look for when you tune in. Watch the video above!
As previously announced, much of the original company reprised their performances, including original SpongeBob Tony Award nominee Ethan Slater. Joining him are fellow original Broadway company members Tony nominee Gavin Lee as Squidward Q. Tentacles, Danny Skinner as Patrick Star, Brian Ray Norris as Eugene Krabs, and Wesley Taylor as Sheldon Plankton, and Christina Sajous (who joined the Broadway cast six months into the run) as Sandy Cheeks. The ensemble features 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., and Allan Washington.
Veteran SpongeBob SquarePants voice actor Tom Kenny—who voiced the animated SpongeBob, French narrator, and Patchy the Pirate—will perform the original Sara Bareilles song “Poor Pirates” onstage as Patchy the Pirate.
The show, re-branded as The SpongeBob Musical for its 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, 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, set and costume designer David Zinn, lighting designer Kevin Adams, projection designer Peter Nigrini, foley artist Mike Dobson, 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.
