All the way from Bikini Bottom, ‘The SpongeBob Musical’ is here to make a splash

As a director, Matthew Weil tends toward the serious (think Tennessee Williams’ Glass Menagerie).

So, when his boss at Haddon Township’s Ritz Theatre Co. asked him to take on The SpongeBob Musical, Weil needed to summon a rapid reframing before gulping, “Yes, of course.”

His theater friends jokingly asked him if, in his version, the happy-go-lucky yellow sponge would meet an untimely demise by curtain’s close.

Weil, who is associate artistic director at the Ritz, understands why people with serious drama chops might be put off at first by what appears to be a children’s story starring a sponge.

“With the content and the characters, it’s easy to pooh-pooh it,” he said, “but it’s a big, massive golden-age-of-theater kind of show — a lot of showstoppers.

“We’ve been saying, ‘If you think it’s not for you, you are probably wrong.’ It’s got big numbers, tap dancing — all the things that make our little theater hearts smile,” Weil said.

With an 18-member cast and a lot of technical intricacies, The SpongeBob Musical provides more than enough directorial challenges for Weil. The tremendous energy and attention to detail those challenges demand are perhaps why Bruce A. Curless, Ritz Theatre Company’s founder and producing artistic director, tapped Weil for the job.

Curless is an avid SpongeBob fan, Weil said, with plenty of SpongeBob memorabilia at home and at work. He would have directed the show himself, but Curless wanted someone younger who had the stamina to pull it off.

As Weil worked on the script, he developed a growing appreciation for the story of the plucky, optimistic sponge who brings together the Bikini Bottom community deeply divided by the threat of a natural disaster.

At the start, “I definitely experienced a ‘Oh my God, I don’t know if I’m the right person for this job.’ ... I like to chip away at the human experience, but this felt like a fluff piece.

The job of the director, Weil added, is to find themes of human experience (even in fluff pieces) and allow them to rise to the surface “and not be squeezed out by spectacle and fluff.”

“Musical comedies have a secret intent. Not only do they provide some distance through some larger-than-life or silly characters, but they are disarming.

“What feels like a fluff piece for the first 90 minutes or so, loosens you up.... Then, the themes of the show start to present themselves. All that work to disarm you readies you for the message,” he said.

“The underlying theme of the show, and what the character of SpongeBob brings to the table is indomitable optimism,” Weil said. In very polarizing times, “the only way out of catastrophe is through community.”

Weil cast Nicholas Eldridge, a theater major at Montclair State University as SpongeBob. “He’s a bundle of joy. He really epitomizes uninhibited optimism,” Weil said.

The SpongeBob Musical caps the 37th season at the Ritz, a gorgeous, lovingly restored theater built in 1927. It started as a vaudeville film house, later transitioning to art and foreign film screenings in the 1950s and 1960s. By the 1970s, the movie fare was decidedly adult – XXX-rated pornography. In the 1980s, a group of artists rented the space to perform plays and in 2002, artists bought the building and named themselves the Ritz Theatre Co.

Besides a nine-show season for adults, the company offers Ritz Kidz, a season of theater for children performed by adults. Up next is The Little Mermaid on July 21-22.

Ritz also runs Ritz Stage Starz, year-round educational programming with shows for kids, performed by kids. During the summer, the Ritz organizes the Ritz Stage Starz Summer Camp. The junior campers, in grades one through eight, will present Seussical Jr. Aug. 11-12, and the high school group will stage A Chorus Line: Teen Edition Aug. 18-19.

“The SpongeBob Musical,” Ritz Theatre Co. runs through July 30 at the Ritz Theatre, 915 White Horse Pike, Haddon Twp., 856-288-3500 or ritztheatreco.org. Check with the theater for COVID-19 protocols. For information on other local events, visit inquirer.com/things-to-do-philly