NEW YORK _ The Great White Way is about to taste the rainbow.
"Skittles Commercial: The Broadway Musical" is set to be this year's most insane Super Bowl ad even though it won't actually air during the big game.
The one-time only live performance comes to Town Hall in Manhattan's Theater District on Super Bowl Sunday, Feb. 3 at 1 p.m. A release from Mars, Inc., which owns Skittles, promises the show will be led by a "soon-to-be-announced celebrity."
Sixteen other cast members have already been announced, including Mylinda Hull, who's appeared on Broadway in "Dirty Rotten Scoundrels" and David Hess, who's been in Broadway's "Sunset Boulevard." A poster for the 30-minute musical shows a cat with Skittles for eyes and a rainbow shooting out of its mouth, but there's no word yet on whether there will be a kitty character.
The candy company is calling the show "the first-ever commercial performed as a live Broadway musical." The musical is written by Brooklyn-based playwright Will Eno, whose play "Thom Pain (based on nothing)" was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in Drama in 2005. Original songs will be performed and backed by a live band.
"We're always looking for opportunities to innovate and entertain our fans in new ways around football's biggest stage," Debbie Litow, brand director for Skittles, said in a release. "And what better way to do that this year than by bringing our ad to the world's most famous stage: Broadway."
Tickets, starting at $32, are currently for sale on Ticketmaster. Proceeds from sales will be donated to Broadway Cares/Equity Fights AIDS _ a nonprofit that gives annual grants that help men, women and children in the U.S. receive medications, healthcare, meals, counseling and emergency assistance. Mars will also match donations up to $50,000, but more than $25,000, regardless of ticket sales.
The Super Bowl is known for its over-the-top, high profile and pricey ads that run in between the game. Skittles, colorful fruit-flavored hard sugar shell candy, opted for a Broadway run "instead of running a 30-second ad during the big game."
