Britney Spears musical was her idea, but she didn't want it to be about her life, show's producer says

The princess-powered Once Upon a One More Time opened Thursday at New York's Marquis Theatre.

By Sara Netzley June 24, 2023 at 02:14 PM EDT

Advertisement

She's so lucky. She's a Broadway star.

Seven years ago, pop icon Britney Spears shared her vision for a musical based on her song catalog — but it wasn't biographical.

The new show Once Upon a One More Time has finally descended on Broadway, and one of its producers says he has the singer herself to thank for the initial idea for it.

"It was actually Britney who approached us and said, 'We'd like to have a show based on my music, and specifically not a bio-musical,'" producer Hunter Arnold told Variety at the musical's opening Thursday night. "The original idea came from ideas brought forth by her: She loves fairy tales, princesses, storybooks. We took a couple of passes at it — we didn't get it right instantly. Then we did a workshop after we got the current-ish version together and she came to see it and give thoughts on it."

"We asked her what she would like, what ideas interested her, and she talked about fairy tales and princesses and butterflies, which is eminently a part of her journey," Nick Scandalios, executive vice president of the Nederlander Organization, told The Hollywood Reporter.

A representative for Spears confirmed this to EW.

Spears' conversation with theater owner and producer James L. Nederlander about the possibility of a musical that incorporated her songs took place in 2016, toward the end of her four-year Las Vegas residency.

Britney Spears

| Credit: Tim Mosenfelder/Getty

Spears and her team signed off on Nederlander's written treatment, which was then brought to life by book writer Jon Hartmere, who says his agent alerted him to the opportunity. "He said that she loves fairy tales, and I'd just written a spec script set in the world of fairy tales," Hartmere told THR. "He was like, 'Is there something you can use from there?' I thought about it over the weekend and said: 'Actually, looking at her songbook, she literally has a song called "Cinderella," so there probably is something I can do here.'"

One legal emancipation and a global pandemic later, Once Upon a One More Time has arrived. The musical, which opened Thursday at Broadway's Marquis Theatre, tells the story of the Grimms Girlies, famous fairy-tale princesses whose eyes are opened by wage inequality and a copy of Betty Friedan's 1963 novel The Feminine Mystique.

EW called the show a "jubilant jukebox musical" featuring a hilarious, self-aware Gen Z spin on "deeply problematic" fairy-tale storylines set to high-energy singing-and-dancing performances of Spears' greatest hits.

Initially, the musical was slated to premiere in Chicago in October 2019, then it was pushed to April 2020, where it fell victim to COVID-19 shutdowns. It finally made its debut in Washington, D.C., in December 2021.

The underlying rights agreement for the musical was one of the first contracts Spears signed following the November 2021 termination of her 13-year conservatorship, and it provides her with a revenue stream from the Broadway production as well as any future touring and licensing income.

"As brilliant as the songs are themselves, it's Britney as an artist that makes those songs what they are," Scandalios told THR. "So we always intended to honor her ubiquitous contribution to what made those songs what they are."

Once Upon a One More Time adds another option for jukebox musical fans, who can also score Broadway tickets for & Juliet and Moulin Rouge. It stars Briga Heelan as Cinderella, Justin Guarini as Charming, Aisha Jackson as Snow White, Gabrielle Beckford as Rapunzel, and Adam Godley as the narrator.

Sign up for Entertainment Weekly's free daily newsletter to get breaking TV news, exclusive first looks, recaps, reviews, interviews with your favorite stars, and more

Related content: