The SpongeBob Musical To Premiere In Chicago

Before the Nickelodeon-produced The SpongeBob Musical heads to Broadway, it will work out its kinks in Chicago.

The SpongeBob Musical will make its World Premiere in Chicago, opening on Tuesday, June 7th at Broadway in Chicago's Oriental Theatre (24 West Randolph Street, Chicago, IL) and will play through Sunday, July 3, 2016. The show is set to make its Broadway debut in the 2016-2017 season.

Any good musical will need some good music, and for that, producers have original songs coming from rock and pop heavyweights like Steven Tyler and Joe Perry of Aerosmith, Jonathan Coulton, Dirty Projectors, The Flaming Lips, John Legend, Lady Antebellum, Cyndi Lauper, Panic! At the Disco, Plain White T's, They Might Be Giants and T.I., with an additional song by David Bowie and additional lyrics by Jonathan Coulton.

The SpongeBob Musical is a rousing tale of a simple sea sponge who faces the unfathomable. It's a celebration of unbridled hope, unexpected heroes, and pure theatrical invention.

"I was drawn to this project not only for its wild theatrical possibility, but also because I felt SpongeBob, at its core, is a layered and hilarious ensemble comedy," said Tina Landau, who co-conceived the play and will be directing it. "SpongeBob himself is of course its center and beating heart--the eternal innocent in a sea of cynics. He's also the classic underdog hero, and so our production sets him on a hero's journey with real stakes, all the while retaining the show's trippy humor and irreverence. We're taking our leads from the TV show but this is an original story, with an original design approach, and original songs written just for the occasion by an amazing array of songwriters. We will present the world of Bikini Bottom and its characters in a whole new way that can only be achieved in the live medium of the theatre. We're bringing the show's fabled characters to life through actors—not prosthetics or costumes that hide them—and we're deploying some unconventional stage craft that will prove that anything can happen in Bikini Bottom."