Britney Spears-Themed Musical Coming to Broadway

By Jem Aswad

LOS ANGELES (Variety.com) – The songs of Britney Spears will be featured in “Once Upon a One More Time,” a musical comedy featuring 23 titles from the singer’s catalog, theater owner James L. Nederlander announced today. The show will have its premiere in fall at Broadway In Chicago’s James M. Nederlander Theatre before heading to Broadway. Previews begin  October 29, with an opening night of November 13 and a limited run through December 1.

While Spears’ music is at the center of the show, the singer herself is not — the musical actually revolves around a humorous take on several classic Disney characters. “Cinderella is having an existential crisis, and she has a posse of famous princesses, and her stepmother is the main antagonist, and there’s also Prince Charming and a dwarf we’ve never met — the eighth dwarf — and a narrator who is unhappy his system is being dismantled before his eyes,” the show’s bookwriter, Jon Hartmere (“The Upside”), told the New York Times. “These women have been in this hermetically sealed world, and then they start to get deeper into modern ideas — second and third-wave feminism — and also explore how stories are passed down to us, and where we get our norms from. But it’s also superfun and funny.”

Hartmere said the show has had several readings, one of which was attended by Spears herself. The singer is on hiatus from her Las Vegas residency “Domination ” while her father recovers from surgery.

“I’m so excited to have a musical with my songs – especially one that takes place in such a magical world filled with characters that I grew up on, who I love and adore,” Spears said in a statement. “This is a dream come true for me!”