Concord Theatricals secures worldwide licensing rights to “SMASH”

Photo credit to Matthew Murphy.

 

Concord Theatricals secures worldwide licensing rights to “SMASH.”

On the centennial of Marilyn Monroe’s birth, Concord Theatricals announced that it has secured exclusive worldwide licensing rights to “SMASH,” the Tony Award-nominated Broadway musical about the making of a musical about Monroe.

The show, adapted from the NBC television series, features a score by Marc Shaiman and Scott Wittman, the Tony-, Emmy-, and Grammy-winning songwriting team behind more than two dozen songs for the original series, plus additional material written for the stage version. The book is by Rick Elice, a four-time Tony nominee, and Bob Martin, a Tony Award winner.

The licensing agreement means that “SMASH,” which played Broadway’s Imperial Theatre in 2025, will now be available for professional, regional, community, and educational productions around the world.

For a property built around theater ambition, backstage pressure, and the mythology of stardom, the timing is pointed. Marilyn Monroe was born on June 1, 1926, and “SMASH” has always used her image less as a biographical endpoint than as a mirror for people trying to build a Broadway show in her name.

Shaiman and Wittman greeted the announcement with the kind of knowing theatricality that shaped the score: “We are so happy that Concord Theatricals will be ‘Moving the Line’ for SMASH, so that people all across the country can join in with ‘the National Pastime,’ roll out their ‘Secondhand White Baby Grands,’ and sing out to the world ‘LET ME BE YOUR STAR!’” they said in a statement.

Elice framed the licensing news in more personal terms, recalling his own early encounters with theater in New York. “I grew up in New York, when theater tickets were cheaper than a movie, so on rainy Saturdays as a kid, I’d try to see a show,” he said. “Finally, in high school, we were able to license a musical and put it on for all our friends and families. It was the happiest I’d ever been.”

He added that Concord now handles three of his shows, but that “SMASH” occupies a special place because “it’s not just a musical; it’s a love letter to musicals.”

“I can’t wait for students to dig into Marc and Scott’s fantastic songs,” Elice said. “I think it’ll inspire a whole new generation of theater kids, just like working on it was such a joyful time for me.”

Martin described the show as a “labor of love,” calling it “this big, sassy, ballsy, flashy, fun, singing, dancing celebration.”

Sean Patrick Flahaven, chief theatricals executive of Concord and a producer of the “SMASH” cast recording, said the company was honored to continue its relationship with the authors. Flahaven said he had worked with Shaiman and Wittman since their time of writing for the television series and that he expected producers and audiences worldwide to respond to the show’s “backstage drama, glamour, and powerhouse songs.”

“SMASH” follows the increasingly frantic final stretch before opening night for “Bombshell,” a lavish new musical about Monroe. At the center is Ivy Lynn, a Broadway star buckling under the weight of expectation, whose unraveling sets off a chain of comic setbacks and backstage surprises. Around her are a diva director, a bewildered producer, two exhausted writers, one ambitious understudy, and a company trying to keep the show standing long enough for the curtain to rise.

The stage musical is based in part on the NBC series created by Theresa Rebeck and produced by Universal Television. It opened on Broadway on April 10, 2025, at the Imperial Theatre, under the direction of five-time Tony Award winner Susan Stroman, with choreography by Joshua Bergasse, an Emmy winner and Tony nominee.

During the Broadway run, Concord Theatricals Recordings released the original Broadway cast recording of “SMASH,” featuring Robyn Hurder, Brooks Ashmanskas, Krysta Rodriguez, John Behlmann, Kristine Nielsen, Caroline Bowman, Jacqueline B. Arnold, Bella Coppola, Casey Garvin, Nicholas Matos, Megan Kane, and other members of the original company.

The musical’s licensing future now places “SMASH” in a new phase of its life. A show once built around the pressure of Broadway opening night is heading into classrooms, regional theaters, and local stages, where its central promise may be tested again and again: that somewhere, someone is always waiting for a chance to become the star.