📅Friday, May 2 – Sunday, May 18
📍Bainbridge Performing Arts: 200 Madison Ave. N, Bainbridge Island
💰$10 – $35
Whoooooooooo lives on an island across’a the Sound?
SPONGEBOB SQUAREPANTS!
That’s right, kids! The absorbent, yellow, porous talking sponge that has captured generations of fans since his television debut in 1999 and birthed a billion internet memes is also responsible for the zaniest musical this side of “Seussical.” Premiering on Broadway in 2017, “The SpongeBob Musical” has now become a favorite of regional theater companies across the land (and probably in the deep sea as well).
Now Bainbridge Performing Arts is taking their turn and sharing their strong seasonal selection not just with denizens of the island, but with anyone who’s down to hop on the ferry for some good-natured insanity. And yes, there is a sardine ensemble played by very impressionable children, if you were wondering.
The play itself is a hoot, a thrillingly weird combination of the show’s revered absurdist humor and Broadway’s adherence to undiluted showmanship. It finds SpongeBob and his friends protecting Bikini Bottom from imminent volcano doom. But unlike, say, a “normal” musical (nothing about this world is normal), this show doesn’t have just one or two composers whose names are only known to the most knowledgeable of drama nerds. The score is a lovingly mad mix of sonic tones from megastars like David Bowie, Panic! At The Disco, The Flaming Lips, They Might Be Giants and John Legend. (My favorite song of the lot? Sara Bareilles’ “Poor Pirates.”)
You’ll have a gas of a time at “SpongeBob” and exit the theatre humming “Best Day Ever” for the rest of your life.
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