Disney theatrical musicals

[Bill1978]

For those who may not be aware, the Cast recording is now available for purchase on iTunes. There is also a physical version available according to Amazon.

http://www.amazon.com/Hunchback-Notre-D ... notre+dame

It's everything and more than I expected to be honest. Such a shame it isn't moving to Broadway. So great to finally have an English version of the stage production in my collection. My preliminary opinion is that this is the best adaptation of a Disney film to stage, musically at least.

[Ben]

Excellent! I'll be getting this when its released in the UK in February!

[Dan]

My review of the album:
http://animatedviews.com/2016/the-hunch ... recording/

Take it you've already listened to the album, Bill. Which track did you like?

[Dan]

Sorry for the double post, but here's a little featurette Disney posted on the cast and crew making the CD.

[James]

My review of the album:
http://animatedviews.com/2016/the-hunch ... recording/...

More AV history this week: that's technically our first music review!

[Bill1978]

Great review Dan,

At the moment I would say my favourite track is Out There. But I do need to give the new tracks a few more listens as usual with these things I tend to lean towards the original movie songs. I also quite enjoyed Someday. Great to hear it within the context of the story even if it has been tweaked a bit from it's original purpose.

[Dan]

Not a hundred percent sure if this is front-page worthy, but Disney will be doing try-out runs of a stage musical adaptation to Freaky Friday. The first try-out will be in Washington DC in October at the MAX Theatre and the second will be over here in San Diego next February at the La Jolla Playhouse (where Hunchback had its San Diego run at).

What's known at the moment regarding the creative team is that it will include direction by La Jolla Playhouse Artistic Director Christopher Ashley, choreography by Sergio Trujillo, and the book is by Bridget Carpenter (who has done scripts for TV shows Parenthood and Friday Night Lights. The music and songs will be by Tom Kitt and Brian Yorkey, best known for their Tony Award and Pulitzer Prize winning work on Next to Normal and more recently the Idina Menzel starred If/Then.

Yorkey wasn't allowed to reveal the cast that participated in lab, but hinted that known Broadway names will be participating in the try-outs.

[Ben]

Great. Now I have "I'd Like To Be You For A Day" on a loop in my head...!

[EricJ]

It was actually a book first. (Although you wouldn't know it from the Lindsay/Jamie Lee version.)

[Ben]

Yep, a book I read as a kid (and not as good as the Jodie film). There were also a couple of sequels too, though not really tied into the first book (they kind of took their cue from that original movie).

I would guess this musical version will borrow more from the Lohan film, to take her hobby into account.

[Dan]

As posted on the front page, Betsy Wolfe has been tapped to play Elsa for the stage musical. I find this to be quite exciting as I saw her last year in Robert and Kristen Lopez' Up Here.

The report also notes that the try-out run will be taking place in Denver in late 2017.

[Bill1978]

I'm still not feeling any need to see Frozen on stage, I'm more keen to see what happens with Anastasia.

At least with the songs from Anastasia they felt like a Broadway musical. The songs from Frozen just fell like songs for a movie. Probably because there is no real number with multiple parts - the closest we got is Fixer Upper. Which may explain part of the appeal of that song to me. Hopefully the book of Frozen will fix up my major issues with the songs - the transitions back into the dialogue. Most of the songs transition well into the song but transitioning out of the song was not the greatest. Many of them suffered from song over, back to the story syndrome

[Dan]

"First Time in Forever" had multi-parts.

[EricJ]

I'm still not feeling any need to see Frozen on stage, I'm more keen to see what happens with Anastasia.
At least with the songs from Anastasia they felt like a Broadway musical. The songs from Frozen just fell like songs for a movie. Probably because there is no real number with multiple parts - the closest we got is Fixer Upper.

That was my problem with the movie, in that Fixer Upper looked and staged EXACTLY like its future stage version, the entire movie seemed as "stage-ready" as Hunchback had been.
Which pigeonholed the movie into a "Wickie-fangirl musical" (you could not only see the Big Set when Anna confronts Elsa at the ice palace, you could practically sense the intermission afterwards), rather than the whole sum-of-their-parts that more animated musicals like Tangled and Aladdin had been.
Speaking of Aladdin, they're already replacing Anaheim's DCA park musical with a scaled-down Frozen park musical, and with the loyalty the old show had, the saturation is loudly starting to wear on the fans. Anaheim-to-Broadway success won't happen twice.

(And wait, whut...are we really getting an Anastasia musical? Is that just nostalgia, is it Fox trying to get their feet into Corporate Studio Broadway, or is Don Bluth still determined to "protest" Disney's marketing by matching every equivalent Anastasia product as he was in 1997, only now with the stage musicals instead of the ice shows and Sea World Orlando attraction?)

(from article)
But the fundamental joy of Toy Story is that Buzz and Woody are absolutely authentic toys. If Andy has to be 20 feet tall and we just see him from the knees down as a puppet, is that fun?

Toy Story on the Disney Cruise ships was one of their first two deliberately groomed to be Broadway-ready, but it, er....wasn't. I could describe what was wrong with it in detail, and why a lot of theme-park groomed shows will never see the light of a big stage, but a quick YouTube should sum it up neatly.

The problem with Disney Theatrical is exactly the same "Anything will work!" overconfidence had after Lion King, that had them that close to finally getting their feet out of the water when nobody cared about seeing Ariel's friends in roller-shoes. And then along came Mary....

[Ben]

Don Bluth is not involved. Anastasia was written by Broadway vets, so it was only a matter of time...