Smash is the story of the journey to put on a Broadway show and as someone who is a total musical theatre nerd I knew I had to get right on it! The reviews tout it as a more mature Glee and after watching a couple of episodes I can totally agree.
The plotline initially follows Karen, a small town girl working her way through the cutthroat Broadway audition scene. She gets her break auditioning for the role of Marilyn Monroe in a brand new original musical up against an equally talented Ivy Lyn.
This is where the plotline deviates from the typical rooting for the underdog story. Ivy’s working just as hard as Karen for this part, she’s been in the business for over 10 years and is done with smiling in the background and Marilyn could be her big break.
Then there’s the other main characters. Julia and Tom, the show’s adorable writer and composer; Derek Wills, the uptight director; Eileen the producer of the show, who is trying to scrape money to fund it after a messy divorce; all of whom are completely endeering as characters and all just as important to the story of the show than just the two actresses fighting for the lead.
At this point in the series the show is still in production, hey it takes a long time to pull together a Broadway musical, so the main inspiration I’m taking from this is the rehearsal fashion. This is very familiar territory for me having been involved in musical theatre in the past and it can be very fun to incorporate the loose dancer style into everyday life.
As the series progresses I’ll probably do a few more of these inspiration sets, maybe focusing on other characters and themes within the show. If you haven’t seen the show, I’d definetley recommend it!
