For those who love musicals and rom-coms, Hulu just premiered their latest show, Up Here. According to Variety, the series takes place in 1999 where it “presents a winning and lovely pair of oddballs singing their hearts out, in disbelief at having found one another.”
The series was ordered by Hulu in January 2022 and brought in Steven Levenson (Dear Evan Hansen, tick, tick…BOOM!), Robert Lopez (The Book of Mormon, Wandavision), Kristen Anderson-Lopez (Frozen, Winnie the Pooh), and Danielle Sanchez-Witzel (My Name Is Earl, New Girl) to produce the series. This is based off of the play also titled Up Here from both Robert Lopez and Kristen Anderson-Lopez which they first produced in 2015. Thomas Kail (Hamilton, Fosse/Verdon) is set to direct the episodes for this series. Coming from Hulu, 20th Television is the production company behind the show working alongside Kail’s Old 320 Sycamore Productions.
The cast consists of Mae Whitman (The Perks of Being a Wallflower, One Fine Day) as Lindsay; Carlos Valdes (The Letter Carrier, Arrow) as Miguel; Katie Finneran (The Michael J. Fox Show, Bloodline) as Joan; John Hodgman (Coraline, The Invention of Lying) as Tom; Andréa Burns (West Side Story, In The Heights) as Rosie; Sophia Hammons (The Social Dilemma, Under Wraps) as Celeste; and Emilia Suárez (A Good Person, Up Here) as Renee. Recurring cast members also include George Hampe (The Resident, FBI: Most Wanted) as Ned; Julia McDermott (Women of the Movement, The Method) as Fiona; Scott Porter (Speed Racer, Dear John) as Orson; Ayumi Patterson (Law & Order: Special Victims Unit, Living With Yourself) as Marta; and Brian Stokes Mitchell (The Prince of Egypt, tick, tick…BOOM!) as Ted/Mr. McGooch. Coming from The Hollywood Reporter, they briefly highlight how, “Up Here has its charms, first and foremost a pair of winning lead performances by Carlos Valdes and Mae Whitman.”
From Forbes, they layout what is presented in the story; “Set in 1999, the series is a musical romantic comedy tells the extraordinary story of one ordinary couple as they fall in love and discover that the single greatest obstacle to finding happiness together might just be the voices in their heads that constantly evoke memories, obsessions, fears and fantasies.”
When speaking with Variety, Lopez mentions his thoughts on the songs used in the series coinciding with the show’s thematic elements, “The idea has always been the same, which is to go inside the mind of someone and musicalize their unexpressed emotions — those doubts, fears and the huge surges of love all those feelings provide.”
Lopez mentions how he, “Wanted to tell a contemporary story about ordinary people. So, I thought, ‘Well, what if you did a musical inside someone’s head? There’s a lot of emotion and yearning going on in everyone’s head that you never get to see. What about a show like that?’” via. Forbes
From that same article, producer and director, Thomas Kail (Hamilton, Fosse/Verdon), mentions the process it took to make this happen, “We just got sort of inspired by the feeling of making a musical, [so we had] these three rooms where there’s always something different going on which was to let us all be in constant communication…So we had a lot of fun, and we’re expecting enrollment to really double next year at Up Here University.”
The series premieres today on Hulu on March 24th, 2023. As of now, previews have left the show with mixed reviews. On Rotten Tomatoes, it has rating of 50% on the tomatometer and a 6.8/10 overall on IMDb. “Kristen Anderson-Lopez and Robert Lopez’s songs are predictably lovely, and the show’s most effective method of conveying their respective disconnection. Some of the storytelling is frankly less developed than the songcraft.” via. Variety.
Also coming from Variety, they interviewed Lopez about the final episode and how the structure incorporated song into its climax. “We never knew whether we would have a main title theme. We had the stub of the song “Can I Ever Know You?” We had the idea for how to end the whole thing, this main title theme that the audience by now knows, but only a short version. They start singing the finale and it’s the main title, but it keeps going, it’s longer and there’s more of it, and it becomes a full song and a closing number. Wouldn’t this be cool for a show that is a blend of Broadway and television to have this climax that is a trope from Broadway — the finale — and a trope from television — the main title theme — all wrapped into one?”
You can watch the trailer for the series down below. It premiered on Hulu on March 24th, 2023, at 12:00am EST, so you can go watch the series there if you’re signed up.