The NBC drama Smash, returning for its second season early next year, offered a backstage look at a fictional Broadway production. Much of the show’s dramatic tension involved the musical’s writers’ effort to tell an honest story in the face of intense market pressure. Read More
Though the city has disallowed exterior shooting until Friday at the earliest in the wake of Hurricane Sandy, at least one studio is back open. Kaufman Astoria Studios in Astoria, Queens, is planning to welcome the crews of Showtime’s Nurse Jackie and Netflix’s Orange is the New Black tomorrow, though the studio was open today as well. Read More
The Wrap reports that Mayor Bloomberg will not issue permits for outdoor filming until Friday or later, affecting productions including NBC’s Smash and Law and Order: Special Victims Unit and the CW’s Gossip Girl. Read More
Emmy-winning actor Sean Hayes will be joining the second season of NBC’s musical comedy(?) Smash, a show that is already best known as a punchline on 30 Rock. Can the Will & Grace star save the show from campy demise? Read More
Smash, the NBC Monday night show that will be going on to a second season despite all evidence that it should have been canceled three episodes in, is getting a new star. Jeremy Jordan, currently starring in Broadway’s Newsies, will be joining the cast of Smash, helping replace Jaime Cepero and Raza Jaffrey and Brian D’Arcy James (Ellis, Dev, and Frank, respectively), who are leaving the show. Read More
After brief remarks from NBC broadcasting chairman Ted Harbert, NBC’s upfront presentation to advertisers at Radio City Music Hall kicked off with the two stars of Smash, Megan Hilty and Katharine McPhee, singing (or lip-synching–the exact notes sounded terrifically familiar) the series’s signature song, “Let Me Be Your Star,” while the red chairs from The Voice loomed behind them. All four chairs eventually turned around (The Voice‘s symbol for a song successfully executed) and Voice stars Christina Aguilera, Cee-Lo Green, and Adam Levine were seated, along with NBC entertainment chairman Robert Greenblatt. Read More
Video
We were a little put out after watching the pilot for NBC’s “hit new show(tm)” Smash and finding out that not once in the entire first episode did Anjelica Huston throw a glass of fluid in someone’s face.
The previews for the show had lied to us, because we distinctly remember an entire commercial dedicated to what looked like a super-cut of her character, Broadway producer Eileen Rand, splashing people (usually her ex-husband) like she was on a really classy version of Punk’d. Luckily, the subsequent two episodes have had a lot more pizzazz. Look at that guy’s face! Every time! Womp-womp! Read More
It’s so weird that Smash is still on after every entertainment journalist, in the culture dearth of early February, discussed it to death before the premiere (we were hardly immune). Guess what? It wasn’t a one-time event! Like Celine Dion’s heart, it will go on–at least until the end of the season and then Read More
Yesterday, New York residents found themselves split into two categories: the people who celebrated the New York Giants’ victory over the New England Patriots in the Super Bowl—for the second time!—by reveling in the ticker tape parade that stretched all down Broadway, and the people who spent the day trying to get through their daily commute. We’re not saying that Eli Manning shouldn’t be celebrated like the “elite” quarterback (take that, ESPN) and god of pigskin that he is, but why couldn’t the city have the parade over the weekend?
Not that we’re complaining—O.K., we are complaining—but if there’s anyone whom we should be cheering on for their performance on Sunday night, we’d pick Madonna over Victor Cruz. Read More
In the feature on the death of camp in today’s paper, we spoke to Smash star Megan Hilty, who plays one of two actresses auditioning for the role of Marilyn Monroe. “Last year, I was gearing up for yet another pilot season–” Ms. Hilty laughed ruefully “–and the script for Smash just kind of Read More
