What was Disney’s first Broadway musical? Including a list of Disney theatrical productions.
Disney’s first Broadway musical was Beauty and the Beast in 1994. This popular musical is based on the Academy Award winning classic Disney film of the same name, which in turn was adapted from the classic French fairy tale. The musical premiered at Theatre Under the Stars in Houston, giving the production team a safe place to further hone their show. Numbers were cut and replaced, staging was redone, and the book was refined during the short run. The original production opened on April 18th, 1994, and entertained Broadway audiences at the prestigious Lunt-Fontanne Theatre and the Palace Theatre for an impressive thirteen years – a run on Broadway of 5464 regular performances, making it one of the longest-running shows in Broadway history. It featured a popular score by Alan Menken, lyrics by Howard Ashman and Tim Rice (with nine new songs written by Menken) and a book by Linda Woolverton who was also responsible for the script for the Disney film. The musical opened on The original Broadway production starred Terrence Man and Susan Egan, both who received Tony nominations. The stage production was directed by newcomer Robert Jess Roth. The designs for the stage musical feature the famous anthropomorphic costumes, by Ann Hould-Ward, received a Tony Award. Though this first Disney Broadway musical did not win the Tony Award for Best Musical (losing out to Sondheim's Passion which ironically tells a very similar story), it did win the Laurence Olivier Award for Best New Musical when the Broadway production moved onto the West End.
The musical adaptation is the same story as the famous movie. Beautiful and discontented young bookworm Belle rescues her father from a horrible Beast who is under a magic spell. Her initial shock at the Beast's appearance eventually turns into love, thereby breaking the spell and turning the Beast back into a handsome, yet flawed Prince. The secondary plot, which involves a similarly cursed set of servants who have been turned into forks, plates, knives, clocks, candelabras, etc., utterly charmed adults in the audience and the children who brought them.
How did Beauty and the Beast get to Broadway? Disney productions and the rebirth of the movie musical.
Mary Poppins, perhaps Walt Disney’s greatest film, was one of the greatest musicals of the 1960’s. The film garnered 13 Academy Award nominations, made a star out of Julie Andrews, and had the entire country singing it’s hit song, Chim-Chim-Cheree. Disney songs from 1930 right on to the 60's were part of popular music: they were sung by everyone from Sinatra to Louis Armstrong. Popular Disney songs had worked their way into the very fiber of the American way of life. Sadly, the decline of the movie musical and the death of their founder came only a few short years later. It would be 25 years before another Disney film captured similar attention. Here is more about Walt Disney!
With the passing of “Uncle Walt”, The Disney Corporation entered its darkest period. The company struggled for the next twenty years to regain the commercial and artistic success it had enjoyed for over thirty-five years with Walt Disney animation studios. The hiring of CEO Michael Eisner, who was a college theatre major with no previous animation experience, led to Disney's renaissance. Eisner brought in theatrical producer Peter Schneider, who brought in Broadway lyricist Howard Ashman and composer Alan Menken. These hires, with their expertise in stage craft, definitely turned Disney's fortunes around with their box office buster The Little Mermaid. The Disney animated film entered its second golden age with a series of well-received films including Beauty and the Beast, Aladdin, The Hunchback of Notre Dame, Pocahontas, The Lion King and Frozen. Almost immediately, producers and critics were wondering if Disney theatrical productions could be far behind.
A short history of Disney’s expansion into live theatrical entertainment.
In February of 1993, Walt Disney Theatrical Production, Ltd., set up shop under the direction of Ron Logan, who was Disney Park’s live production head. With a large catalogue of popular features, the company sought to expand its market and add a bit more class and luster to its already sterling reputation. The move to Broadway perfectly coincided with New York City’s resolution to clean up Times Square. Disney agreed to invest in the total renovation of the New Amsterdam Theater which bought them enormous, good will from the New York Theatre community (Broadway at the New Amsterdam Theatre was an immediate marketing bonanza). Having already worked with famous Broadway writers like Menken & Ashman, the company was well positioned both creatively and financially to take the Broadway market by storm. With further encouragement by famous New York critic, Frank Rich, who in 1991 called the Disney movie Beauty and the Beast the best Broadway musical of the year, Disney launched its wildly popular Broadway branch, creating some of the most popular and lucrative shows in the history of the theatre.
Secret Weapon: How Disney turned Beauty and the Beast into a Broadway musical.
Animated films are one thing, but a musical on Broadway is completely different. Disney studios had years and years to master the art of storytelling. The studio uses a range of theatrical techniques to great effect. Through painting, music, dialogue, comedy, pacing, editing and the countless in-house tricks of the trade the studio invented, the studio had amassed awards and acclaim for years; however, a successful live musical is notoriously difficult to pull off. Broadway history is littered with experienced companies that have failed in the attempt. This time, however, Disney had wisely staffed their Broadway team with two major hitters who had almost single-handedly reinvented the Disney Musical: Howard Ashman and Alan Menken.
Ashman and Menken were the team responsible for the Off-Broadway mega--hit "Little Shop of Horrors" that had played to enormous acclaim at The Orpheum Theatre. Ashman and Menken were a winning combination of old-fashioned knowledge of the show music and pop-culture sensibilities. After having resuscitated the studio's hit-making credentials with The Little Mermaid, Beauty & the Beast, and Aladdin, Ashman and Menken's work possessed the home-team advantage that worked in the musical adaptation's favor. And even though Ashman had passed away from AIDS during the creation of Aladdin, his replacement, Tim Rice, came with his own incredible skill and success. Furthermore, Ashman's awareness of his mortality had given the lyrics of Beauty and the Beast an unexpected poignancy. The unexpected darkness at the heart of the score gave the fairytale a truly moving spine. Broadway audiences were moved to tears.
Howard Ashman's queer sensibility had already made its way into Disney classic, The Little Mermaid. The songs from the movie are replete with references to it. And yet, audiences all over the globe were singing along with Ariel as she longed to join the land-folk. But the queer community couldn't help but relate to the context of her otherness.
UP WHERE THE WALK,
UP WHERE THEY RUN,
UP WHERE THEY STAY ALL DAY IN THE SUN,
WANDERING FREE,
WISH I COULD BE,
PART OF THAT WORLD.
When Ashman turned his attention to the Beast, part of America was reacting to the AIDS crisis by scapegoating the Queer community. Gascon whips the villagers into a frenzy of revenge which they express in one of the shows most chilling musical numbers, The Mob Song." The Mob Song lyrics and more!
(Author's note: I'm a huge fan of Howard Ashman's lyrics. One of the lyrics that I wrote for my musical revue HOW RUDE was based on the bridge of Part of Your World which may be the best bridge ever written for a musical theatre song.)
How many Disney musicals have been on Broadway? Musicals List!
Broadway shows are notoriously difficult to get right, and yet, the Walt Disney company, after the huge success of Beauty and the Beast, continued to adapt and develop properties for Broadway. These popular spectacles included The Lion King, Aladdin, Frozen, The Little Mermaid, Mary Poppins the Musical, Aida, Tarzan, Peter & the Starcatcher & Newsies. Other productions, i.e., High School Musical has performed internationally, on the Disney channel (Disney Plus), in community theatres and in High Schools across the country. In addition to these projects, Europe saw additional shows like Hunchback, Pinocchio, and Winnie the Pooh. There was even an ice show version of Beauty and the Beast that played on CBS! Here is a link to Disney Live!
Disney Musicals on Broadway by popularity -- what is your favorite Disney musical?
The Lion King
Beauty and the Beast
Newsies
Aladdin
Aida*
Mary Poppins.
Frozen (producers announced that the musical would close early due to the pandemic).
* This musical, based on the Verdi opera, maintains the unique position of being the only Disney musical to specifically be developed for the Broadway stage without first being a film classic.
Disney on Broadway: What is the Disney formula for Broadway success?
To say that Disney has conquered Broadway is putting it mildly. These hugely profitable ventures have been seen by over 160 million theatregoers (and counting). Over the past few decades, the company has been nominated for 62 Tony Awards, winning 20 of them. Their success rate in terms of profitability is remarkably high. For example, The Lion King (just to take one example) has grossed over $8.1 billion dollars making it the single most profitable entertainment venture in history. That puts this show $2 billion dollars ahead of Broadway's longest-running show Phantom of the Opera (and yet another rendering of the beautiful woman meets beastly man story).
Julie Taymor discussing The Lion King
Disney’s tried and true formula for Broadway success starts by adapting already successful Disney animation into stage musicals. Composers and lyricist from both the world of Broadway and pop music are tapped to adapt their scores and add additional songs, underscoring, dance arrangements, overtures, and exit music. Disney does not scrimp when it comes to production values. Audiences know that they are going to see magnificent costumes, spectacular scenery, cutting edge lighting, and thrilling special effects and magic tricks. Disney casts veteran Broadway actors who are the cream of their profession as well as the best dancers and singers they can find. The entire Disney package means that audiences are going to be treated to a spectacularly produced two and a half hours of high-quality Broadway entertainment.
The pace of Disney’s Broadway schedule, though slightly slowed down by the coronavirus, remains swift. The latest Disney project, The Jungle Book, seems to be the ideal for continued success. With the size of its profit margins, you can expect the company to continue to comb through its vast catalogue looking for suitable projects with name recognition for future adaptation. There are also rumors of a Broadway revival of Beauty and the Beast. As the company brings other brands like The Muppets and Star Wars under its umbrella, you can bet they will all be under discussion for their musical theater possibilities. If a singing Yoda is a dream that your heart has made, you just might get your wish.
