If, like me, you liked the NBC series
Smash, a fictional musical drama about the making of a Broadway musical about Marilyn Monroe, you’ll love this. The musical within the musical, eventually titled “Bombshell,” was supposed to be fictional too. But by the time
Smash was over, enough songs had been written, and production numbers staged, for “Bombshell” to look like a tantalizing prospect for the actual stage. And that actually happened, once, when an Actors Fund benefit gathered the cast of
Smash to mount a one-night-only concert production of “Bombshell,” with fully staged numbers, in 2015. Craig Zadan and Neil Meron, producers of the movie version of
Chicago, were behind this series and mini-musical, with Mark Shaiman and Scott Wittman writing the score. Stars for this one-shot “Bombshell” taped event, which People is streaming live at 8 p.m. ET as a charity event available on
its People.com website and on People’s Facebook and YouTube outlets, include
Smash co-stars Katharine McPhee and Megan Hilty (both of whom play Marilyn Monroe), Debra Messing, Christian Borle, and future
Hamilton star Leslie Odom, Jr., who would play Aaron Burr, sir.