DCPA NEWS CENTER
Enjoy the best stories and perspectives from the theatre world today.
Enjoy the best stories and perspectives from the theatre world today.
Video above: Denver native Zach Kononov, a graduate of Cherry Creek High School, plays Mr. Krabs in The SpongeBob Musical.’
“SpongeBob SquarePants” is one of the most successful animated series in TV history, but one of the many reasons The SpongeBob Musical continues to broaden its generational appeal on Broadway is its unprecedented rock score, which is made up of original songs by some of the most popular artists in music history.
The roster includes Cyndi Lauper, Aerosmith, The Flaming Lips, Sara Bareilles, Lady Antebellum, John Legend, Panic! at the Disco, Alexander Ebert of Edward Sharpe & The Magnetic Zeros and even the late legend David Bowie — acts that have combined to sell more than 400 million records. If that were the lineup for some hipster concert festival, let’s just say it would certainly be a Bikini Bottom Day for South By Southwest or Coachella.
But theatre? … Theatre? Broadway musicals just aren’t put together this way. And yet Chris Jones of the Chicago Tribune opined that The SpongeBob Musical’s big gamble “works quite beautifully.”
All of the musicians got a brief on where their song would fit in the story, so they weren’t writing random SpongeBob songs. They were then unified by orchestrator Tom Kitt, whose Broadway credits range from Next to Normal to Green Day’s American Idiot. His driving principal was that “first and foremost, you have to retain the identity of the artists,” he said. “It has to be recognizable as their work.”
When word got out that counterculture icon Wayne Coyne of The Flaming Lips was on board, Kitt said, “It seems like every artist we reached out to wanted to be a part of this.” All of the songs are original except for “Best Day Ever,” which comes from the TV show, and a modified version of “No Control,” released by Bowie in 1996.
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The storyline for The SpongeBob Musical stands alone, so audiences need no previous knowledge of the animated series or its characters to follow along. A volcanic apocalypse has come to Bikini Bottom, the title character’s home under the sea, and SpongeBob and his pals (a starfish and a squirrel) must save the day.
One of the central characters is Mr. Krabs, played by Denver native Zach Kononov, a graduate of Cherry Creek High School and former singer with the Colorado Children’s Chorale. Krabs is SpongeBob’s employer, a crabby Krab who sees the impending disaster as a money-making opportunity.
“In a normal musical, you have one book writer and one composer and one lyricist, so all the music is very similar,” Kononov said. “What’s amazing here is that you’re getting all of these different styles, and Tom Kitt has unified them so that they all fit perfectly within the world of the show. There’s something in it for everyone.”
Kononov says everyone should see The SpongeBob Musical “because it’s a show about community and acceptance and love and welcoming in the outsider, which is a message everyone should hear. There is so much cynicism and doom and gloom in the world, and this musical is a balm for all of that. It scatters joy and celebration and endless optimism. Our director, Tina Landau, describes it as a rock concert, a party and a carnival.”
We asked Kononov to introduce the score to readers by highlighting six songs:
John Moore was named one of the 12 most influential theatre critics in the U.S. by American Theatre Magazine. He has since taken a groundbreaking position as the Denver Center’s Senior Arts Journalist.