Football, Meet Broadway: Inside the Making of Peyton and Eli’s Star-Studded ‘ManningCast the Musical’ Short

They don’t give out Tony Awards for Most Comically Elaborate Broadway-Themed Promotional Announcement of a Football Telecast Series. But if they did, “ManningCast the Musical” would be a shoo-in.

“ManningCast,” ESPN’s popular live broadcast series of Monday night football games hosted by NFL superstar brothers Peyton and Eli Manning, announced its fourth season Sept. 3 with a ten-minute YouTube video chronicling the Mannings’ (fictional) efforts to mount “ManningCast the Musical,” complete with original songs, choreo, a “Rent” riff, sequined versions of the Mannings’ signature quarter-zip sweaters, and a bonkers array of cameos from Robert Downey Jr., the Backstreet Boys, Kevin Hart, Michael Bublé, Pete Davidson, Paris Hilton, Snoop Dogg and Disney CEO Bob Iger, all mixed in amid the parade of football faces.

The comedy short, which racked up 6.6 million social media views in its first 48 hours, is extravagant enough to make you wonder: How’d they pull it off? And, uh… why?

Therese Andrews, the head of production at Peyton Manning‘s Omaha Productions, spent the better part of a year overseeing what turned out to be a 22-day shoot, spread across seven months and incorporating more than 40 cameos. She worked in tandem with a team that included writer-conceiver and in-house producer DJ Gallo, executive producer (and Omaha co-founder) Jamie Horowitz, and Tony-winning Broadway regular Tom Kitt. (The “Next to Normal” composer gets a cameo in the promo too, sitting beside a gentleman whom theater fans might not recognize as NFL commissioner Roger Goodell.)

The first cameos were shot way back in February at Pro Bowl in Orlando. “There we were, asking a group of all-star athletes: ‘Hey, do you mind putting on these costumes and dancing and lip-syncing to a couple of our songs?’” Andrews laughs.

Producers of “ManningCast” — which has taken home Emmys for Outstanding Live Series (this year and in 2022) and for Outstanding Personality/Sports Event Analyst (for Peyton in 2023) — have a track record of announcing new seasons with attention-getting, humorous, gently self-skewering promos. Inspired by Peyton Manning’s “Emily in Paris” skit on a 2022 episode of “Saturday Night Live,” Lily Collins announced the second season of “ManningCast,” while the third-season promo was a cameo-laden, seven-minute comedy following the brothers as they conduct disastrous auditions for a third co-host. The latter video racked up 42.5 million social media views.

“It was a case study in how far we could push it in these promos,” Andrew says. “Quite a lot, it turns out. As soon as we were done with production on that one, we immediately got started on the next.”

That was back in October, when the production team began hashing out potential ideas; the Mannings themselves chose the musical concept as the clear favorite. In February, Lin-Manuel Miranda recommended Broadway compatriot Kitt for the project, ahead of a major production day in May with the Mannings and the faux-musical’s onstage performers. Vocal recordings were completed in June, and the last of the cameos was shot just last month.

Standing in for a Broadway venue was the Kent Denver School’s Anschutz Theater in Denver, Colo., where Peyton Manning lives. Performers featured in the on-stage musical sequence were cherry-picked from the University of Colorado’s theater department.

And yes, the Mannings did their own singing, both live and in studio sessions. (Look out, Hugh Jackman.)

All that has only set the bar even higher for the “ManningCast” fifth season announcement. They start brainstorming for that next month.

But in the meantime: “Gosh, we have 80% of a musical already,” Andrews jokes. “Why don’t we just keep going?”