The Ensemblist

“Understudy” premiered on April 9th, 2012. It was written by Jerome Hairston, and directed by Adam Dernstein. The viewership dipped yet again from the previous week, premiering to an audience of 5.99 million viewers...

“The Movie Star” premiered on April 16, 2012. It was written by Julie Rottenberg and Elisa Zuritsky, and directed by Tricia Brock. Again, shout-out to an all-female team! The episode was viewed by 5.95 million viewers. Down again, man. This episode had three featured songs total, though one could argue that that spoken-word version of “Let Me Be Your Star” should count for half! Wow...

“Publicity” premiered on April 23rd, 2012. It marks the return of our original team from the pilot and first few episodes of the series: Theresa Rebeck and Michael Mayer, who respectively wrote and directed this episode. The viewership was up this episode! Yay! Premiering to 6.01 million viewers, about sixty thousand more than last week!! Gotta be that Bollywood promo, right? There were three featured songs this episode, which may have been my favorite episode soundtrack of the season...

“Tech” premiered on April 30th, 2012. It was written by Jason Grote & Lakshmi Sundaram, and directed by Roxann Dawson. Sadly, viewership dipped back down even despite the surge from the previous week, amounting to a mere 5.34 million. Songs this week mainly featured non-Smash properties: we got an opening montage set to Cole Porter’s “Another Op’nin’, Another Show” sung by Christian Borle, and a cover of Rose Royce’s/Mary J. Blige’s song, “I’m Goin’ Down,” sung this time by Megan Hilty...

“Previews,” the penultimate episode of the season, premiered on May 7th, 2012. It was written by David Marshall Grant, and directed by Robert Duncan McNeill (another weird Star Trek connection: Robert McNeill played Lieutenant Tom Paris, also on Star Trek Voyager! So weird….I wonder what the connection is….). The viewership was up from the previous week, being seen by 5.72 million viewers. Thank goodness...

"Bombshell” premiered on May 14, 2012. Rebeck stans rejoice: this finale episode was written by show creator Theresa Rebeck. It was also directed by Michael Morris, who last directed episode 3 of the series. The viewership was up by about a quarter million viewers this week, ending the season with a triumphant 5.96 million! Yay! No covers this week! Instead, rounding out the season was all music by Marc Shaiman and Scott Whitman...

Before we dive into season two, Aaron and I wanted to take stock of the first season as a whole...

Today we have for you a very special episode in honor of The Actors Fund and the livestream of their 2015 concert of Bombshell. For those of you who haven’t spent the last six months watching Smash episodes (like we have) this will be your perfect promise for remembering what Bombshell was all about. Throughout this episode, we will guide you through the most iconic moments of the Bombshell score along with our thoughts and critiques of each number. Enjoy!

Aaron Albano joins The Ensemblist as co-host of this new mini-series, where we rewatch and dissect what is still the Broadway community’s favorite tv show: Smash. Yes, we’re talking about the NBC series that aired from 2012-2013. The show gave a behind-the-scenes look at the creation of an imaginary Broadway musical called Bombshell, from the auditions to its workshop to its journey to the Tony Awards...

Smash was also an incredible glimpse into the theatre community in the early 2010s, as many of the shows’ writers, actors and dancers were played by real Broadway performers with real Broadway cred. But we wanted to go back in time to see how the show has weathered: what it got right and what it got very, very wrong. So let’s dive in and talk about season one, episode three: “Enter Mr. DiMaggio.” “Enter Mr. DiMaggio” premiered on February 20, 2012...