MUMBAI: The Original Cast Recording of SpongeBob SquarePants – The New Musical released 22 September by Masterworks Broadway. Available now, the album features a score of original songs unlike anything Broadway has ever heard and is produced by Scott Riesett and Tom Kitt, with executive producers Scott Farthing, Doug Cohn and Susan Vargo. A special two-LP vinyl version of the recording will be released on 3 November, in anticipation of the show’s Broadway performances which will begin on 6 November at the Palace Theater in New York City.
A visionary director and a Tony Award®-winning design team bring one of the world’s most beloved and unforgettable characters to Broadway in SpongeBob SquarePants, with a legendary roster of Grammy Award-winning songwriters coming together to give the musical its distinctive voice.
“Our musical is about community – and the diverse, colourful individuals who come to cherish and fight for it. So this album represents a diverse community of songwriters, each singular in his or her own writing voice – yet all a part of the kooky, kaleidoscopic world we call Bikini Bottom,” says Tina Landau, who conceived and directs SpongeBob SquarePants.
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To write the songs that give an irrepressible and eclectic voice to the world and the story of SpongeBob SquarePants, the production reached out to leading songwriters in the rock and pop worlds. The composer/lyricists include Yolanda Adams, Steven Tyler and Joe Perry of Aerosmith, Sara Bareilles, Jonathan Coulton, Alex Ebert of Edward Sharpe and The Magnetic Zeros, The Flaming Lips, Lady Antebellum, Cyndi Lauper, John Legend, Panic. At the Disco, Plain White T’s, They Might Be Giants, and T.I., and songs by David Bowie, Tom Kenny and Andy Paley, with additional lyrics by Jonathan Coulton and additional music by Tom Kitt.
Kitt arranged and orchestrated all the songs in a way that serves the specific needs of the show, while spotlighting the distinctive voices of each songwriter.
“I cannot say enough about the care and creativity each one of them brought to their compositions,” he says. “Every song brilliantly encapsulates the moment they were asked to write for. And all of these songs are beautifully crafted with melodic hooks that I challenge anyone to jettison from their brains after the first listen.”
Conceived and directed by Tina Landau – with orchestrations, arrangements and music supervision by Pulitzer Prize-winning composer Tom Kitt – SpongeBob SquarePants has an original book by Kyle Jarrow, with choreography by Christopher Gattelli. The cast is headed by Ethan Slater as SpongeBob SquarePants, Gavin Lee as Squidward, Lilli Cooperas Sandy Cheeks and Danny Skinner as Patrick.
Stakes are higher than ever before as SpongeBob and all of Bikini Bottom faces the total annihilation of their undersea world. Chaos erupts. Lives hang in the balance. And just when all hope seems lost, a most unexpected hero rises up and takes centre stage.
SpongeBob SquarePants – The New Musical is produced by Nickelodeon with Sony Music Masterworks, The Araca Group and Kelp on the Road.
