'Smash,' with Steven Spielberg on board, headed to Broadway

A TV show about a Broadway musical is set to become a Broadway musical.

Filmmaker Steven Spielberg and producers Robert Greenblatt and Neil Meron announced Thursday that "Smash," the cult-favorite NBC backstage drama about a Broadway show based on the life of Marilyn Monroe, is being resurrected as "Smash, A New Musical."

"Hairspray" Tony Award winners Marc Shaiman and Scott Wittman, who wrote more than two dozen songs for the 2012-13 TV show, are writing the score to a book being co-written by "The Drowsy Chaperone" Tony winner Bob Martin and three-time Tony nominee Rick Elice. Joshua Bergasse, who won an Emmy Award as choreographer of the series, will reprise his duties. No director was announced.

"I am personally thrilled to be a part of this musical and its road to Broadway," Spielberg, 73, an executive producer of the series, said in a statement. " 'Smash' is near and dear to my heart, and it seems fitting that a new musical inspired by what we did on the show would eventually come to the stage. I'm beyond thrilled to be working with this incredible creative team and my producing partners, who began the 'Smash' journey with me over 10 years ago."

Many of the TV show's songs will be used. The series' central plot, the mounting of the fictional Monroe musical "Bombshell,” remains, but the new production "will depart liberally from the series," the producers said.

The characters of writers Julia Houston and Tom Levitt, played by Debra Messing and Christian Borle on TV, are transferring to Broadway, as are those of fictional stars Karen Cartwright and Ivy Lynn (Katharine McPhee and Megan Hilty in the series).