It was directed by Mike Ockrent and featured music by David Shire and lyrics by Richard Maltby, Jr., with choreography by Susan Stroman.
It involves Josh Baskin, a 12-year-old boy who grows up overnight after being granted a wish by a Zoltar Speaks machine at a carnival.
The musical opened on Broadway at the Shubert Theatre on April 28, 1996, and closed on October 13, 1996, after 193 performances.
[1] Although it was nominated for five Tony Awards (Best Actress, Supporting Actor, Book, Score, and Choreography), it was one of Broadway's costliest money-losers.
[2] The show had a US National tour, directed by Eric D. Schaeffer starring Jim Newman and Jacquelyn Piro Donovan, which began in September 1997 in Wilmington, DE.
[4] Alvin Klein, in his The New York Times review of a 2000 regional production of it, wrote, "Big cannot be cavalierly dismissed as a failed musical that was no match for a blockbuster movie.
Strictly Come Dancing winner and The Wanted vocalist Jay McGuiness stars as Josh.
The production transferred to London's West End at the Dominion Theatre from 6 September to 2 November 2019 with McGuiness reprising the role of Josh.
Josh Baskin, a 12-year-old New Jersey boy, finds that whenever he sees 13-year-old Cynthia Benson, he is unaccountably speechless.
Meeting her in line for a ride called Wild Thunder, he musters enough courage to "talk to her", only to find that she has a date who is 16.
Humiliated, he skateboards away and finds himself in a secluded byway of the carnival with fun house mirrors and a mysterious fortune teller machine, Zoltar Speaks.
(In the touring and rentable versions, his song is replaced by her singing about motherhood while making breakfast ("Say Good Morning To Mom").)
He decides they must go to New York City, find the machine, and let Josh wish himself back to his child life.
Billy returns to New Jersey, leaving him to spend his first night as an adult alone in the Port Authority Bus Terminal.
The next day, waiting for Billy under the clocktower at FAO Schwarz ("The Time Of Your Life") Josh meets MacMillan, the head of a toy company whose sales have suddenly plummeted.
Susan Lawrence, V.P in charge of marketing, whose affair with Paul is just ending, finds herself attracted to Josh ("Here We Go Again").
MacMillan challenges his executives to come up with a new Christmas toy, and demands for them to find a way to relate to their children.
In a suburban mall, Billy, angry at being jilted by Josh, seeks the company of other kids ("It's Time").
They try thinking as children instead of adults—she can't remember how she felt as a 13-year-old, but under his prodding the memory returns ("Dancing All The Time").
He returns to his neighborhood, and watches boys go through the first nervous motions of pairing-off events appropriate to being 13 ("Skateboard Ballet").
The musical is scored for keyboards, bass, guitar, drums, percussion, five woodwind players, trumpets, horns, trombones and a string quartet.