The Off-Broadway League has announced the nominations for the 34th Annual Lucille Lortel Awards for Outstanding Achievement Off-Broadway. As previously announced, the awards will be handed out on Sunday, May 5 at the NYU Skirball Center for Performing Arts, beginning at 7pm EST. Wayne Brady will host the ceremony. The Classic Stage…
On April 15, the Sheen Center's new Backstage Broadway series continues when Alexander Gemignani looks at the runaway success of the new musical Be More Chill, which began life as a young adult novel, was converted into a musical that debuted at a regional theater in New Jersey, became a cult phenomenon with teens and young adults…
The great Ilana Levine of LITTLE KNOWN FACTS PODCAST and Sam Maher of YesBroadway have partnered to bring you How To Be More Chill: an in-depth deep dive into the world of Be More Chill. The first episode talks about the origin story and more…
Be More Chill, the celebrated musical featuring an original score by Joe Iconis, has announced the release of an original Broadway cast recording from Ghostlight Records. The album will be released digitally and on CD this spring. Be More Chill first gained its legion of fans via a cast album of the world premiere production at Two River…
The new musical Be More Chill examines what happens when an ordinary high schooler ingests a super computer pill (or SQUIP, Super Quantum Unit Intel Processor) that transforms him from dork to popular. Prolific composer/lyricist JOE ICONIS worked with scribe Joe Tracz to adapt Ned Vizzini’s YA novel into a retro sci-fi teen…
Be More Chill, the fan-favorite musical written by Joe Iconis and Joe Tracz, celebrates opening night at Broadway's Lyceum Theatre on March 10. Arriving direct from a sold-out off-Broadway engagement, the musical began main-stem previews on February 13. Based on the novel by Ned Vizzini, Be More Chill is the story of Jeremy Heere (played…
This week in the life of Seth Rudetsky, Seth shares stories from a recent interview with Be More Chill composer Joe Iconis, plus teases upcoming concerts with Jeremy Jordan and Gavin Creel. It’s not that I forgot to write my column this week, it’s just that I kept putting it off and it’s now Friday. Regardless, here it is! Last week was my second week…
At the center of the Lyceum Theatre, a Broadway house built in 1903, the Be More Chill set protrudes into its filigreed Beaux-Arts surroundings with concentric frames resembling the beveled outlines of an iPhone. The set has the sheen of a giant video screen, rigged with projections that display the circuitry and computer code essential to the…
The futuristic novel-turned-musical finds its final home on the theater stage and expects to draw crowds from across the country. “Mean Girls meets The Matrix” is how a cast member from the initial run of Be More Chill described the musical in 2015. Today, lead actor Will Roland likes to call it “Little Shop of Horrors meets Ready Player One.” Based…
In 2012 Joe Iconis’ agent gave him a novel by Ned Vizzini called Be More Chill. Iconis is a prolific and crazy-talented composer, lyricist and writer, whose credits include writing the song “Broadway, Here I Come” for Smash. The agent said, “Check this out. This book reminded me of you.” The moment he read the novel Iconis immediately knew the…
