The cable network Showtime and Hollywood director and producer Steven Spielberg are teaming up to create a scripted series that will follow the life of a Broadway show. It will start in the infancy phases all the way through its opening night. Well known composers Marc Shaiman and Scott Wittman, known for their Broadway hit Hairspray are in negotiations to work on the project. According to the article on Variety.com, Spielberg has been developing this series for years and finds that Showtime would be the ideal fit for the show, considering one of the executive directors, Robert Greenblatt, was a recent producer of the Broadway musical 9 to 5.
The show will include every aspect of developing a new show on Broadway, which includes following the actors’ lives who are in the show as well as recruiting investors and creating the songs. The creative team hopes for several seasons of this untitled project to air but this causes some concern because it can be deemed as overambitious. But with the recent success of the Fox network’s show Glee, I don’t believe it should have any trouble gaining viewers. With Glee currently ruling Wednesday nights, I think people are hungry for more scripted performance based shows, especially if they include humor and have some heart.
My hope is that this show will include realistic depictions of the hard work that goes into mounting a Broadway show which are truthful to its audience. Hopefully this will be the case and with that the audience will learn that Broadway is more than just the performance they see on a Saturday evening.
http://www.variety.com/article/VR1118008994.html?categoryid=14&cs=1
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