Broadway-bound 'The SpongeBob Musical' makes its world premiere in Chicago

Steppenwolf Theatre ensemble member Tina Landau got a huge laugh at a February news conference when she shared her initial reaction to the idea of directing the world premiere of “The SpongeBob Musical” at Chicago's Oriental Theatre. That's because Landau revealed that when her agent asked if she was interested, the first word out of her mouth was an expletive — followed by “no.”

Initially, Landau balked at helming the big-budget Broadway-bound musical based on Nickelodeon's long-running animated TV series “SpongeBob Square Pants.”

“I made the assumption that what they were interested in was a kind of arena show with big costume piece characters where you couldn't see (the actors' faces). That did not interest me,” Landau said. “But as soon as I thought about it and asked if they wanted to hear of the way that I would approach this, and when they said, 'Absolutely, yes,' then my imagination started going crazy.”

Landau proposed an approach that didn't rely on bulky costumes to re-create the wacky underwater cartoon characters.

“In the theater, you can take very simple objects and use them in unexpected ways,” Landau said. “And as a combination of that and your imagination, you can create this whole, detailed underwater world.”

Landau became the driving force in gathering a huge creative team that included Kyle Jarrow to write the musical's book and Tom Kitt to be the music supervisor. Also on board to contribute to the song score were household-name bands and rock stars, including the DuPage County natives of Plain White T's, Sara Bareilles, Cyndi Lauper, John Legend and T.I. There's even a song by the late David Bowie.

“It's an ark of rock stars,” laughed Kitt, a songwriter for the Pulitzer Prize-winning musical “Next to Normal” and the orchestrator/arranger for the Broadway run of Green Day's “American Idiot.”

Someone had to set the “ark” on the right course. That job fell to Kitt.

“We knew that we needed somebody like Tom to come in and make sure it felt like a cohesive score and to work with that boatload of rock stars to make the songs work for the theater,” said Jarrow.

Landau and Jarrow provided specific scenarios for the different rock stars, and they were amazed at the willingness of the songwriters to contribute and reshape the material to the show.

“Every artist brought in something that was just so perfect for the moment and so creative,” Kitt said. “It's obvious that they're huge fans of the source material and really spent the time to craft something that was going to be theatrical and add to the story.”

“The SpongeBob Musical” focuses on the title hero and his friends who try to save their deep-sea town of Bikini Bottom from an underwater volcano. But along the way, there's also room for plenty of song and dance.

The dancing provides a challenge for Tony Award-nominee Gavin Lee, who tap-danced upside down as Bert in the 2009 Chicago launch of Disney's “Mary Poppins” on its first national tour. In “The SpongeBob Musical,” Lee gets to tap dance again, but this time as the disagreeable Squidward.

“Of course Squidward has lower four tentacles, so that means four tap shoes,” said Lee. “The false legs kind of have a mind of their own, but it's funny.”

Landau hopes “The SpongeBob Musical” will satisfy not only die-hard fans of the TV show but also regular theatergoers.

“In theater, all we ever want to do is communicate with as many people possible,” Landau said. “A 7-year-old can come and love this on one level, and a 70-year-old can, too. That's the pleasure of working with this kind of material.”

“The SpongeBob Musical”

<b>Location:</b> Oriental Theatre, 24 W. Randolph St., Chicago, (800) 775-2000 or <a href="http://broadwayinchicago.com">broadwayin chicago.com</a>

<b>Showtimes:</b> 7:30 Tuesday through Friday (also June 12), 2 and 8 p.m. Saturday, 2 p.m. Sunday (also Wednesdays starting June 15); now through July 10

<b>Tickets:</b> $30-$97