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Character Breakdown: SMASH Cast Unpacks Their Roles
Mar 2, 2025
Ready for a musical about musicals? Broadway is getting meta this spring when Smash officially arrives at the Imperial Theatre, where it is set to begin previews on March 11. Watch as the cast unpacks their roles and find out even more about the new musical.
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0:00
I play Ivy Lynn
0:15
She is in this production, a massive Broadway star. She's, you know, the Hugh Jackman of Broadway
0:21
A creative team has been waiting like seven years to get her. They wrote bombshell for her
0:27
She is so well loved in the community. because she's such a good human
0:32
She also takes her craft very seriously. She's dedicated, and with Marilyn Monroe
0:38
she just kind of dives in a little too deep and gets carried away
0:43
but she comes back strong in the end. And I play Nigel Davies
0:49
the director-choreographer of the bombshell musical within Smash. And Nigel is, you know, he's been around a long time
0:58
He's very experienced. and I think, you know, his dream of how this was going to go
1:05
starts off pretty well and then it starts to fall apart a little bit
1:09
And because he's not 18, he's not 48, you know, is, you know, I think it takes its toll on him in hopefully a very funny way
1:21
but also in a real way you know there nothing like a big huge Broadway show starting to go like this that just it hilarious you know I relate to her a lot I think she that she is a woman who is a pro and has been in this business
1:38
for a long time and and knows how to do this job really well but really yearns to be the star and
1:45
have her moment and and and break out and which is very meta because it's sort of what I'm
1:51
experiencing with this. So I get to put a lot of myself into this and lean into the comedy
1:59
which there's a lot of, and it's so fun. And there's, um, there are rules, but then there's no rules
2:05
And then we're, we're playing so much and kind of making this very new version of smash that
2:11
hasn't been done yet. Um, so yeah, I'm, I'm just excited. I'm excited for everybody to see this
2:17
And, yeah, so I play Charlie, uh, who play, I played Joe DiMaggio in bombshell
2:21
So I get to do some scenes as Joe DiMaggio and some musical numbers
2:25
And then as the character, Charlie, I think they've been able to take a lot of kind of my own personal feelings of the character
2:33
which is like a little bit of goofiness, a little bit of fun. And then I also get to be really dedicated to my wife, Karen, and I'm very dedicated to my partner, Aden
2:40
So I bring a lot of that kind of like big-hearted, goofy teddy bear of myself to the character
2:46
And then I also get to dance just as much as I would in the ensemble, but getting to also show
2:51
show off my comedy chops and my vocal chops and then also dancing in like something like seven or eight huge dance numbers So I feel like I also love getting to do this show because I get to show off
3:04
I feel like what I do best, which is really great. Who doesn't, you know, want to be able to do that on Broadway
3:09
It's so awesome. Well, you know, I love the acting teacher. But who wouldn't
3:16
And I know that everyone else hates me. So it's fun. You know what I mean
3:21
to come in and sort of try to throw water on everybody's good time
3:27
I play Chloe Zervulian, the associate director, choreographer, and I'm basically Nigel's right-hand man, played by Brooks Sash Manskis
3:36
I'm about to play Anita Cooperman. She is the executive producer, made famous in the TV show by Angelica Houston
3:45
She's a little different, though. She's not as stoic and firm. Well, I'm kind of firm
3:51
With him. I'm a little tough love with him. But she does have a heart, and she really cares about everyone
3:58
She's an ex-fossie dancer, so she understands what it is to be on stage
4:03
and how hard they're all working, and how much they actually want the show to do well
4:08
and come across very well as well. Yeah. I'm playing Scott, Anita's assistant, and I come in not knowing anything about Broadway, about musical theater
4:20
And that what I love about Scott that he just comes in with kind of like a as a clean slate And throughout the show I get to learn so much about what Broadway is and I fall in love with it gradually as it goes on
4:32
And I feel like that's kind of mirroring, like, my real life journey on this show, being introduced
4:36
to the world of Broadway. And yeah, so me and Scott are kind of on parallel lines right now
4:42
I play Tracy, who's the bookwriter and lyricist of Bombshell the Musical, which is the musical
4:46
within the musical. And I'm married to this guy. And I play Jerry, who is the composer of
4:51
bombshell, the musical within the musical. And, you know, we're the kind of successful, you know
4:59
writing duo who then run into some struggles when making bombshell the musical
5:03
also wouldn't be a show. And, you know, there's some stuff that goes wrong between us
5:08
and some stuff that goes wrong with the show and we figure it out and then we don't figure
5:12
it out and, you know, maybe in there Jerry turns to the bottle a little too much
5:16
But, hey. What's great is that we are written by kind of famous married couples
5:21
or formerly married couple of teams, you know? And so, like, people who know what it's like to work with their spouse in the industry
5:27
So it rings very true about this sort of relationship. Yeah. And literally what we were just saying about the, there's two of everyone in the room
5:34
So there's a dynamic that works between Rick and, you know, everyone has their own partner in this thing
5:41
So you get to watch those dynamics from the other side of the table as well. Looking at like, okay, what do the writers have on their table
5:46
Like, okay, all right, tissues, hand sanitizer, pens. They're on their computers
5:51
We have the source material in the room. We don't have to worry about it
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