The Skittles commercial during the Super Bowl next month promises to be a big production, with Michael C. Hall starring in a full-blown Broadway musical in New York.
Super Bowl LIII is just a couple of weeks away, but on Sunday Feb. 3, one theater full of fans will be watching Hall on stage instead. The Dexter alum is starring in a live musical that will serve as Skittles’ 2019 Super Bowl commercial. A teaser for the play directs fans to purchase tickets in advance online.
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The ad for the ad finds Hall in a therapist’s office, describing the anxiety that ‘Skittles Commercial: The Broadway Musical’ is giving him. He describes “having some doubts,” adding: “I don’t really do ads.” Before long, he is trying to describe to his confused therapist how this live commercial experience will work.
Things get even more bizarre as a literal straw man appears in the third seat. He also weighed in on the commercial, and Hall’s strange career moves. By the end, both the therapist and the scarecrow were calling the Skittles ad a “terrible career decision,” and Hall promised to “never make an ad again.”
Just then, the house lights went up, revealing that the therapist’s office was actually a Broadway set. The therapist and the scarecrow bowed, and Hall looked confused. An animated curtain dropped across the screen, and a Ticketmaster URL appeared there.
The show itself will be performed at The Town Hall theater in New York City. It will be filmed live starting at 1 p.m. ET, and will air later on during the game itself. Skittles’ parent company, Mars Wrigley Confectionery, promises that the proceeds from the tickets to the show will go to the charity Broadway Cares/Equity Fight AIDS. Mars will match that donation up to $50,000.
The musical may be a promotional stunt, but that might not stop it from being a sensation. The show was written by Will Eno, a Brooklyn-based playwright who was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in Drama in 2005, for his play Thom Pain (based on nothing).
The cast will include 16 other actors in addition to Hall, and a live band will accompany them for the original songs. The show might be one of the most ambitious undertakings in advertising this year, though the competition is fierce. Chance the Rapper and the Backstreet Boys are set to appear in a Doritos commercial, while Michael Buble will help promote PepsiCo’s Bubly sparkling water.
Super Bowl LIII is on Sunday, Feb. 3.
