Skittles didn’t just avoid the Super Bowl spectacular this year. It put on one of its own –a 30 minute Broadway musical show, which until now has been dubbed Skittles Commercial: The Broadway Musical.
As the last show teaser demonstrated, the show is actually called Advertising Ruins Everything.
https://youtu.be/1nIJCtq9KOk
By all accounts – and sadly, The Stable couldn’t be there – it was quite a show. A roaring success in fact.
Here’s a tantalising amuse bouche, by Vox Media publication, Polygon
“There are — or were, given that the show will only ever be performed once — so many layers of self-awareness to Skittles Commercial: The Broadway Musical that it’s hard to wrap one’s mind around.
Fake knock-off tees were sold outside the theatre; concessions consisted solely of Skittles (obviously); and the stage was an operational bodega (cash only), also selling Skittles, and complete with a random guy hanging out too close to the till. The Playbill included fake ads (a holiday package to North Korea; a picture of furniture under the words ‘nothing unusual here’) as well as random games (a connect-the-dots portrait of Michael C. Hall, tagged, ‘connect all 50 dots, or don’t connect them;’ a quiz matching the actors to different types of chairs with a hint later in the booklet detailing one pairing and “no other matches”).
Then the actual musical began.“
And here’s the entire Polygon’s review.
The Skittles show was produced by DDB Worldwide and Smuggler, and written by Will Eno, the playwright with Pulitzer-finalist in his byline. The star of the show was Michael C. Hall, aka Dexter in the series of the same name. (Note: Dexter was a serial killer cum vigilante.)
The show appeared to be a satire about advertising – or at least, according to Ari Weiss, chief creative officer of DDB North America, “a really interesting look at commercialism, marketing and entertainment and the intersection of what is and what isn’t an ad,” with all the highs and lows, drama and debate, songs and dancing of classic musical theatre.”
Skittles pre-launched a series of songs from the show on Spotify. Their titles are Advertising Ruins Everything, This Might Have Been a Bad Idea and This Definitely Was a Bad Idea. There is also a four-minute recording of Hall eating Skittles.
