Let Me Be Your SMASH

"Fade in on a girl, with a hunger for fame." The new anthem of fame-searchers, and Broadway wannabes. The original song from the Emmy-nominated NBC hit Smash,  that can sum up Megan Hilty's rise to fame.

SPOILER ALERT! Contains Smash spoilers from Season 1

Smash

Summary

Nbc's Smash is a fairly new show that follows the a new musical's path to Broadway. The new musical just happens to be about the life of Marilyn Monroe. It starts with an idea and a song called Let Me Be Your Star written by the openly gay song-writer Tom Levitt and his writing partner Julia Houston. (played by Christian Borle and Debra Messing) After their original song is accidentally released on the internet, a recently divorced producer by the name of Eileen Rand (Anjelica Huston) takes on the project as well as a homophobic slime-bag director named Derek Wills (Jack Davenport). Auditions for the role of Marilyn are held and two girls are called back, Karen Cartwright (Katharine McPhee) and Ivy Lynn (Megan Hilty). Karen is a young girl from Iowa, her only previous experience being in local midwest theaters. Ivy is a seasoned veteran who we can assume to have a BFA in theatre. Ivy has spent 10 years in the chorus of various musicals. 

When pilot season came around, Megan got a script about a television show about a Broadway musical. "I thought it was too good to be true," she says. But she almost didn't try out. In the description for the character of Ivy Lynn, it mentioned dance skills. Megan has notoriously botched many dance auditions. (At one, she just waved repeated an arm motions because she couldn't remember the rest) Her agent told her to just try it, and THANK GOODNESS she did! 

I can't even imagine the overwhelming emotions that Megan felt when she go the part. I can't even begin to describe how it felt, so I'll leave that to Megan; "I literally cried all night. I called my parents, I was sobbing uncontrollably and they thought something was wrong, and I said, 

'No it's a good thing, I'm just really emotional!'"

Megan's character is very complex, and very relatable. Ivy Lynn is definitely my favorite. She sleeps with the Derek, but it's not a one night stand sort of thing. She also gets her hands on some dangerous drugs when her voice becomes overworked and stressed, but she begins to abuse them. Ivy's mother could be one of the roots of her problems. Her mother, Lee Conroy (Bernadatte Peters) is a Broadway star and Ivy can't seem to get out of her shadow. Her mother can't seem to find a single encouraging thing to say to Ivy and I get the sense that Ivy was raised by nannies. When her character is called manipulative and conniving, this is Megan's response, " I can't judge the character like that. I can't think that she's manipulative or conniving. I have to look at it a different way, because i have to love her. In my mind I had to kind of rationalize [Ivy's] behavior as something along the lines of her being a victim of circumstance. She's backed into a corner because of these certain things and that's why she's behaving this way."

Comment Prompter: What is your favorite thing about Megan's "deeply flawed" character Ivy Lynn?

*Direct quotes came from PR and Cambio