On a recent morning at a rehearsal room on 42nd Street, the actress Robyn Hurder stood atop a pedestal, red lips parted, arms outstretched, blond curls vibrating as she sang the final notes of “Let Me Be Your Star.” Then she collapsed, breathless. “This number’s hard,” she said, her face glistening with sweat. “Who did this?”
The song was written over a dozen years ago for the pilot episode of NBC’s “Smash,” a backstage-set nighttime soap about the hectic creation of a Broadway musical, “Bombshell.” There were plans to bring “Bombshell,” a biomusical about Marilyn Monroe, to the real Broadway, but those plans never came to fruition. Neither did “Smash,” which was canceled after two seasons.
But “Let Me Be Your Star,” a classic “I want” song that its composer and co-lyricist, Marc Shaiman, has described as a “neck-bursting showstopper,” endures. Originally sung by Megan Hilty and Katharine McPhee at the close of the pilot, the song, which was nominated for Grammy and Emmy Awards, has been covered by Andrew Rannells, Jonathan Groff and Jeremy Jordan, Ben Platt and Nicole Scherzinger, and masses of fans on Instagram, TikTok, and YouTube.
Ostensibly a song about Monroe’s life, it resonates for any actor — and really, anyone — who longs to shine.
Now it’s been reimagined as the opening number of “Smash,” a new Broadway musical that riffs on the TV show. Hurder plays Ivy Lynn, a Broadway actress tasked with playing Marilyn in “Bombshell.” This opening version of “Let Me Be Your Star” is staged by the director Susan Stroman and the choreographer Joshua Bergasse as a Great White Way fever dream featuring elaborate harmonies, athletic dance and a brassy, big-band sound.
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