Director-choreographer Josh Rhodes has known “Spamalot” intimately for over 20 years. His husband was a replacement dance captain and swing (aka understudy for multiple ensemblists) in the original 2005 Broadway production. Rhodes saw the show many times over and fell in love with it. In 2023, Rhodes helmed and choreographed the Broadway revival — which is now touring across North America.
When “Spamalot” first bowed in the early aughts, its mixture of Monty Python, 12-year-old potty humor and self-effacing Broadway jokes felt new — at least compared to the Main Stem offerings of then-recent years. What other musical had “The Song That Goes Like This,” in which the description of emotionally-manipulative song structure is the lyric, or “You Can’t Succeed on Broadway,” in which the show brazenly pokes at entertainment stereotypes. Since then, more shows have taken up the banner of irreverence, like Tony Award-winning Best Musicals “Avenue Q” and “The Book of Mormon.” Yet Rhodes knew he could still make a “Spamalot” in the 2020s feel fresh.
“You start with the actors,” Rhodes told Broadway News. “You have to have people who understand the material and understand how to take the material and make it feel like they’re delivering it for the first time today. Really good comics can do that.”
