Britney Spears has expressed her support for Once Upon a One More Time, the jukebox Broadway musical based on her music catalogue.
In a short post she shared on her Instagram on Thursday, the pop icon sent well wishes to the cast and production team ahead of the show’s opening night at the Marquis Theatre. “Good luck to the hard-working cast and crew of ‘Once Upon a One More Time,'” she wrote alongside a photo of the show’s logo. “I’ve seen the show and it’s so funny, smart and brilliant.”
The musical comedy, produced by Tony winners James L. Nederlander and Hunter Arnold, opens Thursday night after previews that began May 13. Written by Jon Hartmere, directed and choreographed by Keone and Mari Madrid (Beyond Babel, Karate Kid). is inspired by music performed and recorded by Spears.
“Oops I Did It Again,” “Lucky,” “Circus,” and “Toxic” are among the songs that serve as the soundtrack for this fairytale book club featuring classic characters like Cinderella, Snow White, the Little Mermaid, Rapunzel, and more whose lives is turned upside down by a rogue fairy godmother who decides to place The Feminine Mystique in her lap.
The show was scheduled to take place off-Broadway in Chicago in 2019 and then be pushed back to 2020 before the live theater industry across the country was shut down by the pandemic. But in December 2021, Once Upon a One More Time had its world premiere at the Shakespeare Theater Company in Washington, DC, months before a Los Angeles judge officially terminated Spears’ conservatory. Ahead of the show’s opening, Nederlander and Arnold confirmed that the musical is fully authorized and licensed by Britney Spears and that the licensing agreement has been negotiated, agreed upon and signed by the Grammy winner following the 2022 restoration.
Speaking to ahead of the official opening, senior members of the production’s creative team expressed their excitement at the show’s long journey to the stage and their gratitude to the cast, crew and Spears for making it possible.
“We’re so grateful to this cast, to this company that just got started on this project, and said that we really don’t want to just be a part of it, we really want to embody everything that Britney stands for,” said co-director and choreographer Keone tells THR that the singer embodies joy, happiness and kindness. “We are very pleased to have received confirmation of her support of the show post-restoration so that we can fully support her in creating this work with all our hearts and standing up for the things she is directly behind.” has occurred.”
“It’s so wonderful to go out into the audience every night and feel people interact with him,” added director and choreographer Mari Madrid. “The last few years have been so crazy for humanity that it’s just so refreshing to be in a room with people and feel joy.”
For Hartmere, the journey with the musical – which has undergone a number of changes over the past half decade as it made its way from Chicago to DC and now Broadway – has left a sense of appreciation for the time that helped shape the musical and reshape story along with the show’s director-choreographer team.
“How long it’s taken to get here — it feels a bit like Christmas morning, but the clock has stopped, and I don’t mean just because of COVID,” he said, speaking of the pandemic-related hiatus in the live theater industry. “I was so excited to get this out, but looking back, if we had made the very first version, I wouldn’t even know Keone and Mari, who are the most adorable and amazing people on the planet. We wouldn’t have part of the cast.”
For producer Arnold, the production was only possible with the Spears seal of approval. He said: “Everyone involved really believed that this thing worked spiritually. It has to pay homage to the iconography of her career and be of direct benefit to her.”
Caitlin Huston contributed to this report.