This blog is dedicated to Disney's Aladdin: Broadway's New Musical Comdey. Following a successful Pilot Production at Seattle's 5th Avenue Theatre in 2011, and regional and international productions in 2012, Disney announced that Aladdin would be coming to Broadway in 2014. Aladdin had it's pre-Broadway engagement at Toronto's Ed Mirvish Theatre and opened on Broadway 20th March 2014.
Showing posts with label Beauty and the Beast. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Beauty and the Beast. Show all posts
It's time to celebrate in truly magical style tonight as Disney Theatrical bring the magic of Disney's 100th anniversary to the Royal Variety Performance!
The fabulous new cast of Aladdin's UK and Ireland Tour join the West End casts of The Lion King and Frozen alongside the German cast of the brand new production of Hercules for this once in a century performance at London's Royal Albert Hall!! And that's not all as the performance also sees the return of Samantha Barks as Elsa, ahead of her West End return next year, and Aladdin's own Trevor Dion Nicholas in a duet with Grace Swaby-Moore!
This promises to be a truly magical performance so don't miss it!!
The Royal Variety Performance airs in the UK tonight at 8pm on ITV.
Thursday 18th April was a very special day for Disney Theatrical as they celebrated 25 years of bringing Disney magic to Broadway!
That's right, it's been 25 years since Disney first brought Beauty and the Beast to the Broadway stage. Disney's first stage adaptation ran for an incredible 13 years, helping to revitalise Broadway and bring in a whole new generation of theatre goers. Since then Disney Theatrical have adapted many of Disney's most famous animated classics, live action movies, and even crafted entirely new productions just for the stage.
To celebrate 25 years of theatrical magic, the casts of Disney Theatrical's current Broadway hits, Aladdin, The Lion King, and Frozen, took part in a very special medley on Good Morning America that spanned 25 years from Beauty and the Beast to Frozen.
Jonathan Freeman as Jafar, Photo by Cylla Von Tiedemann or Deen Van Meer
A news round up? What's one of those?! Seriously though it feels like forever since I did one of these so there's like a month's worth of stuff to catch up with! Because of that this post will be extremely link heavy so sorry for that in advance!
Ok, time to catch up with what the Aladdin family have been up to in the last month!
As we get nearer awards season The Hollywood Reporter has posted a piece looking at where last years winners (including Aladdin's own James Monroe Iglehart) are now. Of course we already know the answer to that - he's still making wishes come true at the New Amsterdam Theatre every night as he brings the Genie to magical life!!
Broadway World reported that Alan Menken's new musical The Apprenticeship of Duddy Kravitz will debut at the Segal Centre for Performing Arts in Montreal June 7th to June 28th. For the complete cast and more information see here. But that's not all! Deadline is reporting that Alan Menken is teaming up with Stephen Schwartz once more for a new movie musical by Josh Gad and Jeremy Garelick. I have no idea how Alan manages to balance so many projects at once but I can't wait to see (or at least hear) them all!
The LA Times has a great interview with Alan Menken, primarily about Newsies but it touches on a lot of his other works as well and is a really great read.
Aladdin's original Kassim (and still the spooky voice!) Brandon O'Neill is now taking to the stage once more in Cat on a Hot Tin Roof at the ACT Contemporary Theatre in Seattle. Tickets are available here. And speaking of Brandon O'Neill you can look forward to hearing him again in the upcoming DLC expansion for Destiny.
That's all from the cast, now for something a little different as Disney On Broadway's YouTube channel shares a menu fit for royalty inspired by Aladdin;
Whilst I was away a little Disney film called Cinderella came out in cinemas and before that was an animated short. You might have heard of it, it's called Frozen Fever. Well the song from the short is available on iTunes and the ensemble for the short features some of Aladdin's cast including Merwin Foard and Marisha Wallace! So make sure you check it out!!
Now for something a little special. Do YOU want to join the cast of Aladdin? Playbill have posted an Equity casting call for the show so if you want to join the Aladdin family this is your chance! Good luck!!
That's everything from Aladdin! Now for the last time...
Ok, this is really late but I really wanted to get my review of the show up before it closed so that was my priority over the news round up when we first got home earlier this month. So now, better late than never, is the final news round up for the Paper Mill Playhouse's production of The Hunchback of Notre Dame. This is going to be big so take it as a celebration of all that Hunchback was and hopefully will be again.
Andrew Samonsky is returns to his home town to take part in a one night only cabaret concert Andrew Samonsky: Coming Home at Ventura County's Rubicon Theatre. The concert is on May 3rd and you can find more information, including ticket details, at Broadway World.
Samantha Massell has updated her website. She's played Jasmine and Esmeralda so make sure you check it out to see where Sam goes next! And she also has links to the cast of Hunchback singing at Broadway Sessions so check that out!!
Sadly we now know that The Hunchback of Notre Dame isn't coming to Broadway (at least not yet) so we'll have to wait a little longer to hear those glorious bells ring again. Fans are trying to change that (you can sign the petition to Disney Theatrical here) and there's already rumours of further regional productions to come (remember this article which said that the Tuacahn Amphitheatre was being considered by Disney Theatrical to produce their own staging of the show, now that would be a sight to behold!) but until then I want to leave you with this;
Oh, and I just want to say that it was really incredible to see #PMPHunchback trending on Twitter for the show's final day. This show really touched a lot of people. Broadway may not be in the show's immediate future but it does have a future. It's too powerful, too meaningful and too relevant for it not to be brought to life again someday soon.
Ok that's everything for this news round up but before I go I just want to say happy anniversary to Beauty and the Beast! Disney's first Broadway show celebrated it's 21st birthday yesterday and looking at Disney Theatrical today that show has left an incredible legacy. Playbill has posted a nice article looking at the original cast of the show and what they're doing today. And speaking of Beauty and the Beast Tim Rice this week confirmed that he and Alan Menken are doing new songs for the upcoming live action adaptation so that's something to really look forward to! And if you want to hear more about the film make sure you check out this post that Ian Mckellen made on Facebook, I don't know much about table reads but this one sounds incredible with the cast already dancing and singing and a 30 strong choir. Sounds like this one is going to be something very special.
I'd hoped to have it ready for today but this news round up took a lot longer than I expected (and if I'm being honest I'm shattered from staying up till almost 5am watching Mark Hamill on the Star Wars Celebration live stream last night) so my 1 year review of Aladdin will now be up in a few days time. I'm really sorry for the delay, please watch out for that this week and I'll be back next weekend as the news round up returns to its regular weekly updates.
If you live in America then make sure you don't miss tonight's special Backstage with Disney on Broadway: Celebrating 20 Years on ABC at 7pm EST. And to get you in the mood Entertainment Weekly have a special preview of Glee's Darren Criss singing Aladdin's Proud of Your Boy.
Hosted by Jesse Tyler this hour long celebration will take you from 1994's Beauty and the Beast to 2014's Aladdin and feature performances by Elton John, Mary Poppins' Ashley Brown and Aladdin's own Adam Jacobs as well as taking you back stage during the show stopping extravaganza that is Friend Like Me.
