Scene: A massive converted warehouse somewhere in Brooklyn, late 2011. The lights come up on the cast of an ambitious network drama about the making of a Broadway musical based on the life of Marilyn Monroe as they screen the series’ pilot during a catered lunch break. Once the credits roll, so do the waves of applause…

As anyone who’s read the copious critical raves knows, Smash — the most faaabulous show that’s not on Bravo — is all that and an orchestra seat. Produced by Steven Spielberg, created by Emmy nominee Theresa Rebeck (NYPD Blue), loaded with tunes by Hairspray Tony winners Marc Shaiman and Scott Wittman and boasting a cast so good you’d think it was on cable, this stage-door soap is either gonna be a knock-’em-dead blockbuster or one of TV’s splashiest misfits.

It’s risky for sure. There’s a reason you don’t see a lot of musical dramedies on the small screen, and unless Rachel Berry winds up in the Big Apple, Smash couldn’t be any less like Glee… something NBC chairman Bob Greenblatt is happy about. “Three years ago, everybody thought putting Glee on was crazy, including the network,” says Greenblatt, amid a swarm of hyped-up chorus types and crew members following the cast screening. Having first developed a “darker” version of the backstage serial while heading up Showtime, Greenblatt is grateful that Fox’s show-choir hit “laid the groundwork for music in a TV show,” even while distancing Smash from any comparisons. “Up until Glee, it had been a spotty record for musicals,” he says. “We take our hats off to them. We’re different shows that are going to be lumped together because we’re the only two musicals, but we are very different.”

So different, in fact, that Smash might be too “inside baseball” for the average viewer, which is why the producers have packed it with something for everyone. “If you love theater, you’ll love the show,” says executive producer Neil Meron (a producer of Oscar winner Chicago). “If you have no interest in theater… well, their lives are like everybody else’s, so we’ll be dealing with their parents, boyfriends, girlfriends, their families.” Adds Rebeck, “It’s more character-driven” with “great soap elements” aplenty. “It’s a very complicated world in terms of the class structure,” she says. “It’s very much like Upstairs/Downstairs, except there’s not a mansion; it’s a [theater].”

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An actress playing Marilyn Monroeis twirling among a group of lithe dancers when four of them grab electric fans, angle them just-so toward the ceiling and balloon her skirt, re-creating the blonde bombshell’s iconic pose.

The scene is her breakup with Joe DiMaggio, set to Lexington and 52nd St., one of a number of original songs written for NBC’s Smash (Monday, 10 ET/PT). Or rather, for Marilyn: The Musical, a show-within-a-TV-show taking shape in a Brooklyn TV studio decked out as an austere rehearsal space.

It’s part of a comeback of sorts for Monroe, nearly 50 years after her death: Michelle Williams’ portrayal in My Life With Marilyn won her a third Oscar nomination last week, and Fragments, a collection of her poetry and notes, was published in 2010.

“There’s something about her at the core that everyone can identify with,” says Megan Hilty, a Broadway actress who plays one of two Smash characters vying for the role. “Aside from the glamour, it was that primal animalistic energy she had.”

But it’s also a potential comeback for fourth-place (and nearly hitless) NBC, which is pouring tens of millions of dollars into programming chief Bob Greenblatt’s biggest bet. “It’s a world that is inherently dramatic and visually exciting,” he says, and a departure from the network’s generic cop and lawyer shows, which have mostly tanked. “If it doesn’t work, we’re not going to fall apart. But it’s a big hope that it can land and start to turn the tide around for us. It’s the biggest, buzziest, loudest, highest-concept thing we have.”

And the most heavily marketed, with ubiquitous ads, promos in Sunday’s Super Bowl, free early downloads and last week’s gala premiere at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. There’s even (perhaps premature) talk of a real Marilyn musical on Broadway.

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Beer-guzzling NFL fans might have been a tad confused when they tuned in to Sunday Night Football in recent weeks and saw promo after promo for NBC’s Broadway-themed drama Smash.

Off-brand as they might seem, the football plugs are part of a massive marketing and publicity push for the series about the making of a Marilyn Monroe stage musical. Smash, which premieres Feb. 6, is being peddled everywhere from art museums to macho sporting events to such male-dominated TV hubs as Golf Channel and G4. In fact, NBC chief Bob Greenblatt, eager for his first scripted success, has spent a surprising sum on off-network promotions for the Debra Messing-Katharine McPhee drama.

Although one well-placed source pegs the spend at about $22 million — double what premium cable networks typically allocate to promote a new series — NBC Entertainment marketing president Len Fogge, who followed Greenblatt from Showtime, vehemently refutes that figure, placing it at less than $10 million. “We’ve been very strategic in how we’ve spent the marketing dollars,” he tells THR, suggesting the Smash budget is below the high-water mark spent on heavily hyped 2010 flop The Event. “What I’m hoping is that our less-than-$10 million campaign, plus the NBC assets that have really stepped up to support us … feels like a much bigger campaign. We’re trying to make noise.”

The marketing deluge, which many describe as an “all-in” mentality at the network, has stretched to every corner of the Comcast universe, with promos appearing on Bravo, Oxygen and E! and the pilot available for free streaming on Comcast’s digital platforms as well as iTunes, American Airlines flights and such sites as RyanSeacrest.com and Hulu. In addition to elaborate, cable-style publicity materials, screening events have taken place at the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the Museum of Modern Art in New York. And the show will be featured on TV’s biggest stage: NBC’s coverage of Feb. 5′s Super Bowl. (While they’re not performing, McPhee and co-star Megan Hilty will be in Indianapolis for events and photo ops.)

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Debra Messing is guesting ‘Live with Kelly‘ on February 6th, make sure to tune in!

If you’re eagerly awaiting the series premiere of NBC’s new musical drama Smash and you have Comcast, you won’t have to wait as long as everyone else to see the series premiere. Those with access to Xfinity TV will be able to see the Smash premiere three weeks earlier than its official TV debut on NBC.

Smash is a musical drama that “celebrates the beauty and heartbreak of the Broadway theater.” It stars Debra Messing, Anjelica Huston and Katharine McPhee, among others, and could give Glee a run for its money in the musical-TV department. The show will follow the creation of a Broadway musical based on the life of Marilyn Monroe. Given the cast and the subject matter, Smash looks like it could give Glee a run for its money as far as musical television goes.

While most will have to wait until February 6th (10:00 p.m. EST) for the official premiere of the NBC series, others will get to see the premiere in a little over a week. Smash will be available to Comcast customers on January 16th, when subscribers will be able to view the premiere on Xfinity On Demand and n the Xfinity TV iPad app. The series premiere will also be available at XfinityTV.com beginning January 23rd.

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