Video: DEATH BECOMES HER Is Getting Ready for Broadway

Hello, I'm Richard Ridge for Broadway World

One of this season's most eagerly awaited new musicals is Death Becomes Her

which is based on the iconic film. It welcomes back to Broadway, Jennifer Samard, Megan Hilty

Christopher Seber, and Michelle Williams, and I caught up with all of them and the creative team during a break in rehearsal

I can't believe it. I can't believe it. How lucky am I that I get to be a part of this amazing show

with this incredible cast and creative team? I still don't believe it

I won't believe it until we've way past opening. What's made this so special for you

You worked on some great shows, but there's something really special about this. It's all of the people involved, really

I've said for years it would take something extraordinarily special to take me from my very cushy life in L.A

and come back and do eight shows a week again. And as soon as I met with the producers from Universal Studios

and I read the script and met with, like, most of the creative team

I said, oh, that's it, we're moving. We going back I mean it really special It heaven on earth or hell on earth but it no it so fun This is a winner of a show I you know I been around for a minute And I seen it all and I been it all And this one is that good So it just a privilege and honor It magic I pinching myself that I get to have as much fun as I having I thrilled You know one day will be your last Broadway show and you never know when that going to be So you must take that privilege in and I try to do that every day and not take it

for granted, because it was my dream. But you know what, it's a lot of people's dreams, and sometimes

they come true, sometimes they don't, so I like to think I'm doing it for all of them, you know

This is so crazy. I'm so, I mean, it's, I'm so grateful for this. I mean, it's incredible. The fact that

I get to go back to the Lundfontein Theater where I met my husband 25 years ago and I get to go back there

I mean, how often do you get to be in the same theater that you did a show 25 years ago

I mean, that's incredible to me. That's incredible to me. But also, this cast, the team, the creative team, everybody, I'm gesturing over there because our bookwriters over there

But everybody involved with the show, it's been so collaborative and so great

But it's all about the show and it's always been about what is funny, what is funny, what is funny

and it's nonstop hilarious. And I'm so happy about that. I'm very excited

First of all, I'm excited to be talking to Broadway world. It's, I promise you, it is an honor as being a little girl who at one point

even in my teens, couldn't afford a Broadway ticket because they were expensive, right

And to be in a Broadway show it pretty amazing You can do anything y I promise If this girl from Rockford can do it you can We as such fans of the film we wanted to very much honor and paid tribute to the things that people know and love

So you have little nods to Alan Sylvester's beautiful score, just you know when you want those strings and you want that drama and that spookiness

So there is a lot of that. There's also just a richness to the references and, you know, the quotables, the things that people love so much

and just these characters, it lends itself so well to the stage. So it's been pretty natural in that sense to feel like we're honoring the same musical tone

that the world might inhabit in the film. Yeah. And getting to emulate some of our favorite musicals in the process

and hopefully bring this musical in with them into the fray. Like we want the heightened scares of like a Sweeney and like the laughs of a little shop, I think

I think for my first time out, I actually enjoyed having the

backbone or spine of a movie to help me. I think I wasn't quite ready for a total original

but what I wanted to do really was alter this movie. I think it was done in 92, updated

Beauty and being judged by your beauty is such a bigger touch point now in 2024

So it was fun to explore that. I know it sounds corny but I truly loved every minute I was at my computer because Noel and Julia were in New York and I was in LA and it was during COVID So we actually wrote this thing a far apart

And we, I'm going to do a scene about this. Well, we're going to write a song about this

And it's like, great. And Chris Cotelli, our director, really gave us that freedom

And hopefully when we cobble this together, it'll make sense. And it seemed to

This will be my 21st Broadway show, if you can believe that

So I said, I joke like that I like, oh, I'm adult now. I get to, so, so, so, but to, to, to have this show be the one as, like

that I, that I'm directing and choreographing, I just, I feel, like, first of all, I just

I don't, never take them for granted, but this especially, like, the responsibility of

taking such an iconic film, but also making it its own thing

Like, and that's what the authors have, have really, like, we, we, we, we honor everything

that people love about it. And, like, you know, because I'm a huge fan of the film. So I was like, nope, that's got to stay, you know, but at the same time

You know, but at the same time, it's its own piece and one that to me feels like it, like, it deserves to be on Broadway

I mean, the opening number from the film, she's doing, I see me on a Broadway stage. Perfect

Like, great. So it already gives you an in and permission, but the way that they've shaped it, they just take it and they've made it go further and really, really hone in on that friend of me relationship

And that's been, yeah, I can't, I'm very excited to show this to people