How close is SMASH, a musical about the making of a musical, to reality?
Too close for comfort.
"It's very meta," said Brooks Ashmanskas, who — advance word has it — steals this show based on the cult 2012 NBC series about a team of "creatives" putting together a Broadway musical about Marilyn Monroe. The show opens Thursday, April 10.
As Nigel, the director of the show-within-a-show, he is constantly put in predicaments that parallel those of Susan Stroman, the actual director of SMASH — in its preview period now, just as Bombshell, the musical-within-the-musical, is. "There have been some illnesses along the way," Ashmanskas reveals, highlighting the uncanny parallels between art and reality in this backstage farce.
