You ain’t never seen an anniversary like this!! Today Disney’s Aladdin celebrates its 10th anniversary on Broadway!
Following an out of town try out in Toronto, Aladdin began Broadway previews on February 26, 2014 before officially opening on March 20 ten years ago tonight.
To celebrate this momentous occasion, Disney Theatrical are hosting a 10th Anniversary Special Performance next week. Original director/choreographer Casey Nicholaw has returned to add a number of Easter eggs throughout the show along with a special mid-show surprise during the showstopping “Friend Like Me”.
Tonight will be Aladdin’s 3,513th performance on Broadway, placing it in the Top 20 longest running shows in Broadway history! Disney Theatrical have also release some pretty impressive stats to mark this wondrous occasion. As of tonight:
- Aladdin and Jasmine will have flown over 115 miles on the magic carpet whilst performing “A Whole New World”
- Genie will have set off more than 131,000 pyrotechnics during “Friend Like Me”
- The cast and wardrobe team will have made almost 250,000 rapid costume changes in “Prince Ali”
- And 850 pounds of custom mixed glitter will have been used to create Genie’s signature sparkle
To celebrate this incredible milestone here is a look back at 10 of my favorite videos of the Broadway cast during the first 10 years of this amazing show. These aren’t in a ranked order, just some of the fun things and performances they have done on stage and off during the first decade of Aladdin.
Christmas at Walt Disney World
Beginning the list with the Disney Christmas Celebration as it feels like this was the start of the 10th anniversary celebrations. Broadway’s Michael James Scott (Genie), is joined by the US Tour’s Adi Roy (Aladdin) with ensemble members from both productions for this festive performance of “Friend Like Me” on Main Street USA at Disney World!
You don’t often see much of the Broadway productions in the parks, outside of EPCOT’s fantastic Festival of the Arts, so I absolutely love seeing the cast in full costume performing on Main Street.
And speaking of Festival of the Arts, here is the first bonus video on this list! Every year January EPCOT’s Festival of the Arts features the Broadway Concert series where stars of Disney Theatrical perform short concerts each night. And this year there was a special concert in celebration of Aladdin’s 10th anniversary which you can view below!
1st Anniversary Co-Star challenge
For the show’s first anniversary, Disney put together this fun co-star challenge to see just how well they knew each other after a year in Agrabah. I’d actually forgotten some of these answers!
Announcing Arielle
Ok, technically they were announcing Arielle for the Australian cast but she went on to play Jasmine on Broadway so I am totally counting this. Plus it was just such a fun and sweet reveal. I love that they did this.
On a personal note, I finally got to meet Arielle and see her perform at EPCOT’s Festival of the Arts last year and she is just amazing!
Making Magic at Madame Tussauds
Not gonna lie, this is probably one of my favourite promo videos from the early days of the show. Just so much fun!
From Agrabah to the White House
I’d actually forgotten about this one but it instantly made the list when I rediscovered it for this piece! The cast of Aladdin went to the White House to perform at the Kids’ State Dinner! How cool is that?!
And here’s your second bonus video – the full performance direct from the White House!
ESPN
I’ve always said that the cast of this show are some of the hardest working on Broadway. The sheer amount of energy this show must take is just off the charts. But thanks to this video you don’t need to take my word for that! In this fun collaboration science meets Genie magic as the ESPN Sports Science team put a bioharness on Major Attaway to track him throughout “Friend Like Me” and the results are impressive!
The Epic Sing Off
No one likes a delay at the airport, especially a 6 hour weather delay, but when it leads to a sing off this epic I wish I could have been there! Seeing JMI freestyle is always a delight and this sing off ending going viral, making the news and leading to our next bonus video! A rematch on Good Morning America!
Oh, and I may be bias but Aladdin totally won that airport sing off!
Old School Gaming
James is right, this game was solid! There is so much I love in this video, from Adam trying the old cheat code to Courtney calling the game Aladdin “Adam” and Don Darryl laughing when he killed himself (Iago) in the game. Just a great video and they did one with the London cast a few years later that was just as much fun.
I had the SNES version as a child so I only got to play this (nearly impossible) version of Aladdin a few times back in the nineties. With the re-release a few years back I was finally able to play it and, with judicious use of the new save and rewind features, complete it. My inner child felt very satisfied that day!
Aladdin 2.0 – Re-Opening on Broadway
After a year and a half shutdown, the re-opening of Broadway was such a long awaited day. I remember watching the return announcement trailer over and over with tears of joy in my eyes. With a mix of new and returning cast members, Aladdin finally returned on September 28, 2021. It’s hard to describe it now, it feels at once recent but also a lifetime ago, but the sheer joy of seeing live theatre again was immense. And you can see that happiness in this video. Broadway was back.
Which brings me to our final two bonus videos!
Ahead of Broadway’s full return, Disney hosted a charity Live at the New Am event where the current Genie and the award winning original shared a spontaneous moment!
And with Broadway back, Disney, for the first time ever, televised “A Whole New World” on Good Morning America followed by a performance of “Friend Like Me” that culminated with a live finale in Times Square!
5 Genies for 5 Years on Broadway
What better way to end this list than with Aladdin’s last milestone anniversary? To celebrate Aladdin’s 5th anniversary, Disney Theatrical brought together five Genies - Tony Award winning James Monroe Iglehart (Broadway’s original Genie), Michael James Scott (Genie on Broadway), Major Attaway (Genie on US Tour), Juwan Crawley and Deonte L. Warren (Broadway’s stand by Genies) - at the show’s curtain call to perform a fantastic medley culminating in a five Genie “Friend Like Me” finale.
Honestly, I’m not sure how they top this for the anniversary performance next week (surely not 10 Genies?!) but I’m excited to find out. And James, I’m gonna hold you to that tenth anniversary promise!
And that’s my top ten! Ok, I cheated and added a few bonus videos, but, unlike wishes, there’s no limit on how many videos I can have in a blog post and there’s too much magic to be limited to just ten!
There are so many honorable mentions I’d love to include but I’m going to limited myself to three (yeah, I really suck at this top 10 stuff).
First up is not a promotional video or performance, but the story of Mikayla Renfrow's personal "magic carpet" ride back to NYC to make sure the show could go on. It's a real life story that sounds like something that only happens in the movies so I just love this story!
There's already a few videos of various performances of "Friend Like Me" in the list so I'm not including the Tony Awards performance (though I probably should!) BUT I just have to include James Monroe Iglehart winning the Tony for his performance as Genie!
And my last honorable mention is a performance not by the cast of the Broadway production, but of a very special performance that took place at curtain call when Peabo Bryson and Regina Belle reunited to perform "A Whole New World".
As I wrap this up I’m reminded again of the words of Thomas Schumacher, who once said that the reason Aladdin exists today “is because nobody quit. Nobody quit on it, and it was the sheer will of an enormous number of committed people that made that show happen.” So to all the casts, crews, and creative teams involved with the show over the last decade, on Broadway and beyond, to everyone who never quit on it and made Aladdin the success it is today, I just want to say a heartfelt thank you so very much for everything. Here’s to the next decade of granting wishes.
And speaking of those who were there at the beginning, who never quit, who helped to shape the show and whose lives were changed by it, here is the video I create with some of the original cast members in celebration of the original Pilot Production’s 10th anniversary back in 2021, looking back on those early days and their time with the show:
Aladdin celebrates it’s 10th anniversary tonight and with a 10th Anniversary Special Performance next week.
Thank you for the magic.
