Disney To Reboot 'Beauty And The Beast' On Broadway
It's a tale as old as time that Disney can't get enough of rebooting its wildly popular properties on the screen and on the stage. Disney Theatrical is developing a revival of the Broadway musical that kicked off the 25-year era of the stageplay subsidiary of the House of Mouse: Beauty and the Beast. The new Beauty and the Beast Broadway musical will be a retelling of the classic story but with some key changes that brings this age-old tale to an all-new audience.
Disney Theatrical chief Thomas Schumacher revealed in an interview with Show People (via The Disney Blog) that a Beauty and the Beast Broadway musical revival is in the works with the "original team" but a "completely new design for every element," including changes to dance arrangements, staging ideas, and more. Schumacher said in the interview:
"It's been 25 years since Beauty and the Beast opened on Broadway—we obviously weren't the first people to do a family musical. Certain generations would say, 'Oh, the first musical I saw was 'The King and I' or 'The Sound of Music' or 'Annie.' Beauty and the Beast brought a very different audience than what people were expecting on Broadway.
It was both a date night show and a kids' show. We're working on a revival of it with the entire original team but with a completely new design for every element: new dance arrangements, whole new staging ideas. It's really fun for that team to be able to dive back in."
The original team that first brought Beauty and the Beast to the stage were the animated film's songwriters Alan Menken, Howard Ashman and Tim Rice, as well as Linda Woolverton, who wrote the book. Ashman has since passed, but it's unclear whether the rest of the team are all on board to reboot Beauty and the Beast. But with the phenomenal box office success that Disney saw with the big-screen version of Beauty and the Beast, it's no wonder Disney Theatrical wants to bring back the magic. In the original musical's first run from 1994 – 2007, it achieved widespread success and acclaim, becoming Broadway's tenth longest-running production in history.
The musical also had a major impact on Beauty and the Beast's overall pop culture legacy, with some of its original songs and story changes making their way to the 2017 film starring Emma Watson and Dan Stevens. Disney Theatrical will likely want to capitalize on the success of that film by bringing back the beloved stage musical that started it all.
Watch the entire interview with Schumacher below.