Megan Mullally eyes Karen: the Musical
After Karen, Mullally was offered a broad array of opportunities on TV and the stage. Some worked and some didn’t, like her short-lived talk show and the series “In the Motherhood.” Nonetheless, her choices proved she hadn’t been typecast as a narcissist with a high-pitched voice. And that knowledge freed her to contemplate creating a Broadway show around her popular character, tentatively titled “Karen: The Musical.”
She recently secured the rights from NBC and backing from Fox Theatricals. “The Drowsy Chaperone” director Casey Nickolaw is attached to the project, and Jeff Blumen- krantz, an actor-composer she met in the 1995 Broadway revival of “How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying,” is writing the songs. Leslie Jordan, who played Karen’s nemesis, Beverley Leslie, on “Will,” is set to return. And now the creators are looking for a book writer.
“The main thing is Karen is such a great character, and people really want to see her again,” she says. “Even jaded people in our business are giggling. Also, nobody has taken their sitcom character and done a big Broadway musical.”
She envisions a limited run in L.A. before taking the show to New York and around the world. Of course, she’d have to work that into a busy schedule that includes appearing in “Children’s Hospital” — Rob Corddry’s Web satire of doctor shows, which has been picked up by Adult Swim — and in “Party Down,” replacing Jane Lynch’s character in Starz’s offbeat comedy about a catering company.
“I don’t like to be elitist in any way,” she says. “I like to do little things, like ‘Children’s Hospital,’ which is very, very cult. But then I also like doing really commercial things like the talk show and ‘Karen: The Musical.’ I like to keep all my options open. I don’t see why you wouldn’t.”
