"Let Me Be Your Star" is an original song introduced in the first episode of the first season of the musical TV series Smash, entitled "Pilot".
In the first episode, the song is performed by characters Karen Cartwright (Katharine McPhee) and Ivy Lynn (Megan Hilty) as they each prepare for and then audition for the role of Marilyn in front the production team.
Greenblatt, who was nicknamed "Mr Freed" after the MGM producer of "Singin' in the Rain" and "Meet Me in St. Louis" said to the writing duo that "this has to be more universal in its story.
[3] Scott Brown describes the song's reprise in the second episode, "The Callback", as "[Karen and Ivy] standing center stage 'in a pool of light'...around her, phantom blondes spit spoken torments between the musical phrases".
AfterElton describes the pilot version of the song as "genius, blending an amazing cocktail of determination and confidence with need and desire".
[6] Scott Brown of Vulture describes the song as the "best number" of the pilot, and compares the "driving, pop-injected act-ender" to "Defying Gravity" from Wicked.
urgency", and draws a comparison with his "favourite lyric" from the musical episode of Community "Everything's cooler when cameras are spinning / Singing and dancing in unison-in-in-ing".
[16] Scott Brown comments that in the reprise in "The Callback", the song is more suited to the slower tempo, and adds that it "gives those long phrases a chance to breathe and doesn't force them to carry a whole lot of driving rhythmic energy".
[19] Marianne Schaberg of Character Grades said that Duvall's version at the workshop "felt like we were watching a repeat of Lana Del Rey on SNL.
Ivy and Karen's powerhouse vocals belied their intense vulnerability as they vied to play Marilyn, and the stunning climax landed them in the heart of Times Square — just two girls with huge dreams"[21] On July 19, 2012, the song was nominated for a Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Original Music and Lyrics.
[22] Broadway star Andrew Rannells (The Book of Mormon, Falsettos, Hairspray, Hamilton, Hedwig and the Angry Inch, and Jersey Boys) performed a portion of the song in the persona of his Girls character, Elijah Krantz, during a Girls episode in which Elijah auditions for a fictional Broadway show.