SpongeBob Squarepants is about to trade in Bikini Bottom for Broadway: The Nickelodeon series is set to become a musical.

There are few details, plot-wise, about the show, but in a splashy press release, Nickelodeon (which is producing the show) and director Tina Landau teased some big names that will be involved in the project. Music will be provided by Jonathan Coulton, Dirty Projectors, The Flaming Lips, John Legend, Lady Antebellum, Cyndi Lauper, Panic! At the Disco, Plain White T's, They Might Be Giants, T.I., and Aerosmith's Steven Tyler and Joe Perry. In addition to that eclectic list, David Bowie is also writing a song, and Coulton will write additional lyrics.

"I was drawn to this project not only for its wild theatrical possibility, but also because I felt 'SpongeBob,' at its core, is a layered and hilarious ensemble comedy," Landau said in a statement. She continued:

SpongeBob himself is of course its center and beating heart--the eternal innocent in a sea of cynics. He's also the classic underdog hero, and so our production sets him on a hero's journey with real stakes, all the while retaining the show's trippy humor and irreverence. We're taking our leads from the TV show but this is an original story, with an original design approach, and original songs written just for the occasion by an amazing array of songwriters. We will present the world of Bikini Bottom and its characters in a whole new way that can only be achieved in the live medium of the theatre. We're bringing the show's fabled characters to life through actors—not prosthetics or costumes that hide them—and we're deploying some unconventional stage craft that will prove that anything can happen in Bikini Bottom.

Sounds pretty awesome to us. The show will debut for a limited run in Chicago in the summer of 2016, before making its way to Broadway in time for the 2016-2017 season.

[via: TV by the Numbers]

Photo credit: Nickelodeon