by Chris Peterson
A song popped up on my Spotify the other morning. No warning. No reason. Just algorithmic chaos doing what it does best.
“And it’s your wedding daaaaay…”
And suddenly I wasn’t making coffee anymore. I was back in the mid-2000s, when Broadway was featuring musicals that were loud, goofy, sincere, and completely unconcerned with whether it was important. Which, of course, led me down a familiar path. The dangerous one. The “wait, should this come back?” path.
Because here’s the thing I had somehow not fully clocked until that moment. It’s been almost twenty years since The Wedding Singer was on Broadway.
Twenty years. That feels… right? Long enough for nostalgia to settle in. Long enough for a new generation of theatre kids to know the movie, maybe know the show exists, but never have actually seen it live. Long enough that a revival wouldn’t feel desperate or lazy, but more like, “Oh yeah. That one.”
And honestly? I think it might be time.
The Wedding Singer is not a misunderstood masterpiece. It is not secretly brilliant in a way we all somehow missed. It is a musical that knows exactly what it is and commits fully. It takes a silly, sweet Adam Sandler rom-com, throws it headfirst into synths, leg warmers, and power ballads, and dares you not to smile.
And when it opened in 2006, Broadway was okay with that.
The original production didn’t try to outsmart the audience. Stephen Lynch and Laura Benanti were lightning in a bottle. The Sklar and Beguelin score understood its job and did it well. Big laughs. Catchy hooks. Characters you actually rooted for. The show wasn’t ironic about the ’80s. It loved them. And that sincerity is probably why it’s aged better than some shows that thought they were being clever.
Fast forward twenty years and Broadway feels heavier. Everything has to justify itself. Revivals arrive either shrink-wrapped like museum pieces or “reimagined” into something so serious you’re afraid to laugh too loudly. Everything has to matter.
Meanwhile, audiences are pretty clear about what they want. They want joy. They want to laugh together in a room again. They want to leave humming something dumb and delightful without needing a program note to explain why it was good for them.
That’s where The Wedding Singer still fits.