All tagged Tarzan

Ranking Disney on Broadway: Celebrating and Analyzing 25 Years on the Great White Way

It is hard to believe that it has been 25 years since Disney produced its first musical on Broadway, changing the trajectory of family musicals (and Times Square) forever. Today, I take a look at the nine musicals Disney Theatricals have brought to the Great White Way, offering my opinions on what worked, what didn’t, and rank the titles in order of my least favorite to my most favorite. All opinions are my own and please note that, though I look at these nine with a critical eye, I find something wonderful in everything Disney has to offer. This list includes only musicals that have made it to Broadway (no Freaky FridayThe Hunchback of Notre DameHercules, or The Jungle Book) and no concerts (sorry King David). Stay with me as I work my way to my choice for #1. 

Movie Musicals On the Stage: What Is the Recipe for Success? – Part One

Those classic Hollywood musicals of the old studio system (particularly Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer) were, for many of us, our glorious introduction to the musical form. Our affection for the iconic moments and memorable songs in these cinematic masterpieces makes them ripe for the picking to transplant to the Broadway stage. Whether-or-not doing so does them any justice is another question altogether. We are often disappointed by the result; how do you effectively take what was artfully and intimately captured through a camera’s lens and reimagine it in the wider, more distant picture of the stage?

Broadway Musical Time Machine: Looking Back at Tarzan

Disney musicals on Broadway can be enormous hits: Beauty and the BeastAidaThe Lion KingAladdinNewsiesMary Poppins were all unqualified successes. The Little Mermaid didn't fair quite as well, but the title has become a popular one with regional theatres and summer stock companies. Then there is poor Tarzan, a peculiar choice to receive the Broadway treatment, but a production that was filled with some inventive and startling moments. Tarzan is, of course, based on the Edgar Rice Burroughs novel of the same name about a human boy whose family is shipwrecked to a remote African jungle. When the boy's parents are killed, he is raised by a family of gorillas. He grows into adulthood, mastering survival from the animals that surround and teach him by example. When he is reclaimed by the human race, Tarzan must navigate living a life somewhere between his jungle family and his newfound life with the girl Jane and mankind as a whole.