The e-book author for “As soon as Upon a One Extra Time,” the Britney Spears jukebox musical opening on Broadway Thursday night time, usually returns to a reminiscence from 5 years in the past, when Spears sat in a Manhattan theater a number of rows in entrance of him and watched an early studying of the present.

“I used to be simply watching her and it was like, ‘Is she going to love this?’” the author, Jon Hartmere, mentioned lately, recalling his aid every time he noticed Spears clap alongside or smile as one in all her songs got here on. “It was pure delight.”

A campy fairy-tale spoof that sidesteps the bio-musical method to deal with a solid of disillusioned Disney princesses and storybook protagonists, “As soon as Upon a One Extra Time” is the most recent in an extended line of jukebox musicals which have plumbed the catalogs of acts together with Frankie Valli and the 4 Seasons, Michael Jackson, Tina Turner and the Temptations in pursuit of field workplace gold.

With a monitor listing stacked with hits corresponding to “Stronger,” “Poisonous” and “Circus,” the present has the potential for boffo success, nevertheless it additionally faces distinctive challenges. Initially conceived when Spears was below a conservatorship that gave her father huge management over her life, the manufacturing has assured followers that the present was totally approved by the pop star herself after she was free of the association. However it’s unclear how a lot her fiercely loyal fan base — whose activism helped gas the unraveling of the conservatorship — will embrace it. It could seemingly solely take one spirited remark from Spears, a 41-year-old star with a repute for unfiltered and unpredictable social media posts, to win or lose that viewers.

Followers inside and out of doors the manufacturing have been preserving an in depth eye on Spears’s famously lively Instagram account to see if she opines on the present (she hasn’t, but). And solid and crew members have sought assurances internally that the manufacturing’s income are benefiting Spears herself, moderately than her former managers or her father, James P. Spears, who was named her conservator amid considerations about her psychological well being and went on to train management over her private life and funds for greater than a decade, at the same time as she continued to carry out.

“As artists, we simply need her to have the ability to make her personal selections and to reside her life the best way she hoped to,” mentioned Keone Madrid, who directed and choreographed the present together with his artistic accomplice and spouse, Mari Madrid. “All of us yearn to honor her work.”

Hunter Arnold, one of many present’s lead producers, mentioned Spears signed the contract herself after the conservatorship was terminated and that nobody else in Spears’s camp presently has a deal to obtain income.

A consultant for Spears didn’t make her accessible for an interview however confirmed the timing of the newest deal and added that the singer had supplied notes in response to movies of the Madrids’s choreography.

The opening comes at a time when Spears’s life has continued to be the topic of gossip objects. For the reason that authorized association was terminated, Spears has introduced her marriage to Sam Asghari, one thing she had mentioned she was not capable of do below the conservatorship, and briefly returned to the music trade, releasing a monitor with Elton John. The authorized battle over winding down the conservatorship has continued in Los Angeles, the place her attorneys have lodged objections to a number of the accounting throughout the conservatorship years.

Throughout the manufacturing, the need to please Spears has typically meant seizing on the dribs and drabs of knowledge that they get from representatives of a reclusive megastar.

Britney likes fairy tales? The present relies in a world the place Cinderella, Snow White and Rapunzel are mates. Britney loves butterflies? The manufacturing made props of the bugs and made the present’s branding into what seems like butterfly-shaped rainbow floodlights, which theatergoers can pose with exterior the theater. (“That may be an instance of the place we had tried to lean in too onerous,” Hartmere mentioned of the present’s monthlong tryout in Washington D.C., noting that the present had gotten rid of a “butterfly vortex” for the Broadway manufacturing.)

“The spirit of it has all the time been serving her needs,” Arnold mentioned.

Due to revelations round how Spears’s father and former administration firm benefited financially from the conservatorship, the musical’s monetary construction has been a central level of scrutiny for some followers.

Initially, manufacturing papers from late 2019 listed an organization known as Shiloh Standing, Inc., which was began by Spears’s father shortly after the creation of the conservatorship, as being entitled to 7.5 % of the manufacturing’s web income, in keeping with paperwork filed with New York State’s lawyer common’s workplace. Larry Rudolph, Spears’s former supervisor, was additionally slated to obtain funds, together with a $30,000 government producer price, plus $1,500 per week.

However plans for a brief run in Chicago in 2020, adopted by a Broadway switch, had been scuttled by the pandemic, the present was placed on maintain and, in that point, Spears’s world was reworked. Leslie Papa, a spokeswoman for the present, mentioned that Spears’s contract was negotiated and signed in 2022, after the termination of the conservatorship, and offers all compensation on to her.

Arnold mentioned Spears has a stake within the present’s royalties via music licensing proceeds, along with an underlying rights deal, which he mentioned was carved out in recognition of her position in popularizing the music, even when different lyricists and music producers personal a lot of the rights to the songs. He declined to specify the precise cost construction for Spears, and it isn’t included in authorities filings to date.

In line with a duplicate of a 2022 finances for the Broadway musical that was shared with The New York Instances by somebody who was not approved to debate the manufacturing, the advance cost for the underlying rights deal related to the present was $80,000. Arnold famous that with profitable Broadway reveals, royalties usually rapidly outpace preliminary advances.

To date a number of the largest social media accounts related to the motion to finish the conservatorship, referred to as #FreeBritney, have mentioned little concerning the musical, particularly in distinction to the fan pleasure across the Elton John collaboration.

However lots of the ticket holders at previews on the Marquis Theater are fast to label themselves as devoted Britney followers, and so they react with delight on the present’s many realizing references to the pop star, which embody a snippet of the unique choreography from “Oops! … I Did It Once more” that tends to make the viewers erupt. As a result of they spent their early teenage years internalizing Spears’s dancing on MTV, the Madrids, who’re recognized for his or her narrative choreography and staccato isolations, think about themselves “pure extensions of her and her work.”

“Her music has all the time been round in my life in a technique or one other,” Mari Madrid mentioned.

These references are like a operating inside joke that a lot of the viewers appears to grasp. The group doesn’t hear the phrase “Britney” via your complete present — it’s solely on the finish that the audio system blast the pop star’s most well-known opening line: “It’s Britney, bitch.” Not one of the present’s official merchandise carries Spears’s picture, however one fast-selling tote bag proclaims, “It’s Broadway, bitch.”

Nelson Saavedra Jr., the proprietor of the #FreeBritney web page on Reddit, has opted to assist the present and has attended two preview performances already, noting that any direct evaluation from Spears would affect his personal considering on it.

“Britney signed the deal after she was free so let’s simply transfer on and take that at face worth,” Saavedra mentioned. “In fact, that will change tomorrow if she mentioned, ‘Please don’t go see this play.’”

Viewers members could be forgiven for considering that the musical’s central theme — a cohort of famed damsels in misery taking management of their very own lives — is a few grand metaphor for Spears’s launch from the conservatorship, however Hartmere mentioned the parallels are simply coincidence.

“It’s this story about girls studying what they’ll and may have out of life,” Hartmere mentioned. “That’s all the time been the story from the get-go.”

For Hartmere, returning to that reminiscence of Spears watching that early efficiency additionally engenders some nervousness: What if she finally ends up upset that some songs didn’t make the ultimate lower? The present’s creators couldn’t work out easy methods to make the risqué lyrics from her 2016 monitor “Clumsy” match for kids, so the music was eliminated.

Proper now, the creators can solely wait to see if Spears decides to attend a efficiency — which, they acknowledge, is anybody’s greatest guess.

Michael Paulson and Liz Day contributed reporting.