Britney Spears’ biggest hits are getting a fairy-tale makeover with the arrival of Once Upon a One More Time on Broadway.
Produced by Tony winners James L. Nederlander and Hunter Arnold, the musical comedy will open at the Marquis Theatre on June 23 following previews, which begin May 13. Directed and choreographed by Keone and Mari Madrid (Beyond Babel, Karate Kid), the show combines classic storybook characters — think Cinderella, Snow White, Little Mermaid and more — with hits from Spears’ extensive, award-winning music catalog.
The show is billed as being inspired by music performed and recorded by Spears, who is otherwise not known to be involved. According to a rep for the production, all of the musical compositions in the show are licensed through their publishers with the approval of the songwriters. The Hollywood Reporter has reached out to a lawyer for Spears for comment.
Described as a revisionist fairy tale, Once Upon a One More Time is a “musical adventure about claiming your own happily ever after,” according to the production. Singles like “Oops I Did It Again,” “Lucky,” “Circus” and “Toxic” serve as the soundtrack to a fairy-tale book club upended by a rogue fairy godmother, who decides to drop The Feminine Mystique into the laps of women who have known little else outside of “bird-made dresses and true love’s kiss.”
With an original story written by Jon Hartmere (Bare, The Upside), the production’s creative team includes David Leveaux (Nine, Romeo and Juliet) as a creative consultant, scenic designer Anna Fleischle (Hangmen, Everybody’s Talking About Jamie), costume and hair designer Loren Elstein (Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead), lighting designer Kenneth Posner (Wicked, Beetlejuice), sound designer Andrew Keister (KPOP, On Your Feet!) and projection designer Sven Ortel (Newsies).
The show was originally slated for a pre-Broadway run in Chicago in 2019 at the James M. Nederlander Theatre, but delayed its opening to spring 2020. In March, the pandemic shut down theaters across the country, with producers deciding to cancel the show’s Chicago engagement.
Once Upon a One More Time would make its world premiere in December 2021 at Washington D.C.’s Shakespeare Theatre Company, where it eventually extended its limited engagement from Jan. 3 to 9 due to demand.
Spears, who is not credited as part of the creative or producer team, was present for an early reading in 2019, according to The Washington Post. Ahead of the musical’s abandoned Chicago run, during which Spears was still in her now-ended 13-year conservatorship, Playbill reported that the pop icon called the production “a dream come true for me.”
“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,” she continued in a statement at the time.
Before the musical’s D.C. run in 2021, Hartmere said he was “given access to all of Spears’ songs,” according to an interview with the Post. “The only thing I was told was that she loves fairies,” he said of Spears. “And I was like, ‘That’s it, that’s what we’ve got to go on.’”
“I knew the songs that everybody else knew,” he added. “I didn’t know the deep cuts. She literally has a song [called] ‘Cinderella.’ I was like, ‘All right, I have to do this.’”
The news comes on the pop icon’s 41st birthday.
This story was originally published by The Hollywood Reporter.
