Some Like It Hot on Broadway

Turn up the heat with Some Like It Hot and see the most Tony-nominated show of the season! The new Broadway musical, based on the iconic Marilyn Monroe film, brings new-fashioned comedy and old-fashioned jazz to the New York stage. Get Some Like It Hot tickets on TodayTix.

Some Like It Hot is the big, brassy, Broadway spectacle you’ve been waiting for – or as New York Theatre Guide hails it, “a bracing, fizzy cocktail garnished with a winning cast”, and 13 Tony nominations including Best Musical to boot. With Casey Nicholaw – director/choreographer of The Book of Mormon, Aladdin, and The Drowsy Chaperone – in charge, expect grand production numbers and plenty of energy set to Marc Shaiman and Scott Wittman’s (Hairspray) big-band jazz score.

The Some Like It Hot film’s story, of two at-large musicians finding love and themselves while in disguise, was groundbreaking in 1959. This adaptation, by comedian Amber Ruffin and Tony-winning playwright Matthew López, brings a fresh message for today’s world about living your most authentic self, while keeping all the movie’s most iconic moments intact.

Don’t skip town before hearing the sweet music of Some Like It Hot. Get Some Like It Hot Broadway tickets on TodayTix.

In Some Like It Hot, jazz musicians Joe and Jerry accidentally witness a mob hit and skip town with Sweet Sue's Society Syncopators, an all-female traveling swing band. They navigate romantic ups and downs, including with lead singer Sugar, but ultimately, Some Like It Hot is about Joe and Jerry discovering their truest identities.

The Some Like It Hot film was instantly buzzy, not just because it featured Marilyn Monroe as Sugar. The movie included cross-dressing and thus went against the Hays Code, which specified a set of taboo topics the media couldn't use at the time. But Some Like It Hot received six Oscar nominations and one win, jump-starting the movement to abolish the Hays Code. Some Like It Hot has since been called one of the greatest comedy films of all time and was one of the first 25 movies preserved in the United States National Film Registry.

Most shows have a pre-Broadway run elsewhere in the U.S. before landing in New York, but unlike Joe and Jerry, the Some Like It Hot musical hasn't traveled the country. The Broadway production is its world premiere, featuring two-time Tony winner Christian Borle and J. Harrison Ghee, both of whom are 2023 Tony nominees.

What to Watch For

• The original Some Like It Hot movie is set in the 1920s, but the musical places the action in the 1930s.
• A full-sized train car comes on stage during the musical!
• The Some Like It Hot musical interrogates gender differently than the movie. One of the show's lead actors — J. Harrison Ghee, who plays Jerry — is nonbinary. In an interview, they said, "I saw an opportunity for me to be pushed as an entertainer by playing Jerry and the opportunity to bring my own non-binary identity onstage.”
• The Some Like It Hot film includes some songs, but those aren't featured in the stage show. Shaiman and Wittman's original songs for the musical are inspired by jazz and big band swing musicians like Billie Holiday, Ella Fitzgerald, Lena Horne, and Duke Ellington.
• Shaiman and Wittman composed songs for another Marilyn Monroe-adjacent project: the TV show Smash, about a fictional Broadway musical about Monroe. A lyric in one of their Smash songs, "Let's Be Bad," references Some Like It Hot: "Melt the ice, some like it hot!"