Even without Mickey, Disney is one mighty mouse on Broadway.
By late next year, the entertainment giant will enjoy a corner on Broadway not seen since 1991-2000, when Cameron Mackintosh ruled Times Square with “Phantom of the Opera,” “Les Misérables,” “Miss Saigon” and “Cats.”
Soon to join Disney’s ageless “Beauty and the Beast” and the “The Lion King” are “Tarzan,” The Little Mermaid” and “Mary Poppins.”
“But Disney certainly isn’t taking over Broadway,” said Disney Theatricals producer Thomas Schumacher, whose latest venture, the nationally touring “On the Record,” opens Tuesday at Denver’s Buell Theatre.
“There were 31 new productions on Broadway last season, so obviously there’s room for all sorts of new material,” he said. “If you presume that you don’t want empty theaters, then I don’t know who it actually hurts. Obviously our producing didn’t keep “Wicked” from happening, or “Spamalot,” or “Dirty Rotten Scoundrels.”
Broadway has never truly been owned by anyone, but its eras always have been defined by the proliferation of a particular producer or creative team. Forty years before Mackintosh and Andrew Lloyd Webber, Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein had five musicals running at the same time. Producer Manny Azenberg once had seven shows running simultaneously. “And how many shows did David Merrick have running at one time?” Schumacher asked.
Still, this is unmistakably Disney’s time on Broadway – and all things Disney-like. The most popular show now is Universal’s “Wicked,” and DreamWorks is soon to add “Shrek.” It’s all about family-friendly fare based on existing material.
“And that’s nothing new either, Schumacher said. “In the history of Broadway, almost everything that is everyone’s favorite was based on a book, musical or play, from ‘Oklahoma’ to ‘South Pacific’ to ‘Hello Dolly.’ The list goes on and on. Everybody wants a story that they know. If the audience wants to see a great show, they don’t care who produced it.
“But the reality is, this is not nonprofit theater. We are a producing organization, and people are investing money. The only people who say it’s not about money are the ones who have made so vastly much of it. Of course it’s about money.”
“On the Record” is the only current Disney theatrical venture not ticketed for Broadway. It was conceived to tour as a celebration of 75 years of Disney music. The revue features 64 songs from movies, television shows, stage musicals and park attractions.
“It was always intended to be produced on a much smaller scale than our big Broadway productions,” Schumacher said.
“I had this fantastic collection of songs and I had no idea what to do with it,” he said. “Bobby Longbottom came back and said, ‘What if we created this recording session where people meet for the first time in this room to lay down tracks? That creates an environment in which you can then feature all these great songs.”
Those songs, which are not presented in chronological order, range from 1930’s “Minnie’s Yoo-Hoo” (from “The Shindig,” a black-and-white animated short), to “Will the Sun Ever Shine Again,” which was sung by Bonnie Raitt in the animated “Home on the Range” in 2004.
The cavalcade of classics includes “When You Wish Upon a Star,” “The Bare Necessities,” “Whistle While You Work,” “Let’s Go Fly a Kite,” “Under the Sea” and “Can You Feel the Love Tonight,” from films spanning “Cinderella,” “Peter Pan,” “Snow White,” “The Aristocats,” “The Parent Trap,” “Aladdin,” “Mulan,” “The Lion King” and “Toy Story.”
“It’s absolutely intended to appeal to the core audience of basic theater subscribers, which is a person of a certain age who would know this music and really enjoy it in a revue-style show,” Schumacher said.
“But for me, the appeal is the cross-generational connection,” he said. “Families come and they all know the music, so they play the guessing game, where they try to guess where songs are from. The parents know half the music from their own childhood, and the other half they know from raising their kids. And the kids, of course, know all the newer stuff.”
Creating ways for families to enjoy theater together is all the justification Schumacher needs for expanding Disney’s theatrical wing. If there weren’t an audience for these shows, they wouldn’t be happening.
“Theater audiences keep getting older and older, and so I ask, who has done more than Disney to bring young people to the theater to see a really quality show?” Schumacher said. “How many kids eight years ago at age 10, 12, 15 were seeing ‘The Lion King’ as their first Broadway show? Those kids are … in college today.
“The new audience today are kids who fell in love with theater seeing ‘Beauty and the Beast,’ just as kids now are falling in love with theater by watching ‘Wicked.’ I am thrilled for them and it’s not even my show, because I am thrilled for anyone who has a fantastic time at the theater.”
Theater critic John Moore can be reached at 303-820-1056 or jmoore@denverpost.com.
“On the Record”
DISNEY MUSICAL REVUE|National touring production presented by Denver Center Attractions|Conceived and directed by Robert Longbottom|Buell Theatre at the Denver Performing Arts Complex, 14th and Curtis streets|THROUGH JULY 31|8 p.m. Tuesdays-Fridays, 2 and 8 p.m. Saturdays, 1 and 6:30 p.m. Sundays|$25-$60|303-893-4100, 866-464-2626 or www.denvercenter.org (800-641-1222 outside Denver)
