DVDizzy Forum

Aladdin is finally coming to Broadway!

Last night, Alan Menken held an intimate performance as part of the ‘Destination D’ event at the Disneyland Resort, held by Disney D23, the official fan club of The Walt Disney Company. After wowing the attending crowd with music from decades of his Tony, Grammy and Oscar-winning career, he closed the show with ‘Proud of Your Boy,’ a song that was intended for the original 1992 film, but was cut due to story changes.

It was when introducing the song that Menken mentioned the musical is currently being tweaked for a Broadway run, according to reports from attendees.

A new staged version of the musical was produced by Disney Theatrical and premiered at the 5th Avenue Theatre in Seattle last year, but no aspirations for Broadway were anywhere to be found — at best, a national tour; at worst, licensing to regional theater.

After a brief run at The Muny in July, the musical is now in production at the Tuacahn Amphitheatre in Utah through mid-October and has managed to incorporate the use of 3D glasses for the Cave of Wonders and Genie’s ‘Friend Like Me’ song, courtesy of former Walt Disney Imagineer Geoff Puckett

Source: http://www.stitchkingdom.com/disney-ala ... way-21773/

Sounds amazing !

Some of the songs from the 5th Avenue Square are up on youtube and they are amazing; though supposedly the musical is a little different from the original classic as Aladdin has human friends, though if the musical is being tweaked maybe they'll edit that out to make it more close to the classic verison ?

Sounds really interesting !

All I can say is....
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Now it's time for Disney get their.....


REVENGE!

And my dream of owning an "official cast recording" CD becomes all the more possible...

Fantastic news!

thelittleursula wrote:Some of the songs from the 5th Avenue Square are up on youtube and they are amazing; though supposedly the musical is a little different from the original classic as Aladdin has human friends, though if the musical is being tweaked maybe they'll edit that out to make it more close to the classic version?

I personally hope not. Everything I've heard about this production suggests that it's closer to Howard Ashman's original draft of the story, which I'm much more interested in seeing in some form.

Excited for the Broadway news!!!!

But there is no damn way I am wearing 3D glasses at a musical....terrible idea!

Pasta67 wrote:

thelittleursula wrote:Some of the songs from the 5th Avenue Square are up on youtube and they are amazing; though supposedly the musical is a little different from the original classic as Aladdin has human friends, though if the musical is being tweaked maybe they'll edit that out to make it more close to the classic version?

I personally hope not. Everything I've heard about this production suggests that it's closer to Howard Ashman's original draft of the story, which I'm much more interested in seeing in some form.

I agree 100%. If I want to watch the movie, I'll watch the movie. This is a golden opportunity to finally release the Aladdin, closer to Howard Ashman's vision. I thought it was clever how they incorporated Jasmine's "Call Me a Princess" brat number without actually altering her character from film Jasmine too much. Now, let's just hope this turns out to be another Newsies/Beauty & the Beast, and not a Little Mermaid/Tarzan.

...the musical is now in production at the Tuacahn Amphitheatre in Utah through mid-October and has managed to incorporate the use of 3D glasses for the Cave of Wonders and Genie’s ‘Friend Like Me’ song...

Wow! It'd be like the Cave of Wonders set piece was really there in the theater!

Hey, wait a minute...

I agree that it should stay close to Howard Ashman's dream version.

Yay! (I had more of a response, but it's just sounds because I saw this and random sounds started coming out of my mouth.) Seriously though, I'm really glad this is being done. I know people who won't watch Aladdin because of 9/11, and it's really ridiculous because it came out 9 years before and the Disney characters didn't blow up the Twin Towers. Not to mention I think they mixed up the nationalities and just got the religion right. I think this is so great because bringing it to New York, where the event occurred, will just show people "grow up and accept that a Disney movie has nothing to do with that horrible time." [/i]

Pasta67 wrote:And my dream of owning an "official cast recording" CD becomes all the more possible...

That's what the most exciting part of this is, to me.

I'll be a little sad if this does well (and I do want it to do well), just because Mermaid will be the only film of the Fab Four that failed in the musical adaptation. That has more to do with the execution that was made than the material, but still.

OMG! YESSSSSSSS! FINALLLLLY! Defientely going to try to see it. But, I wish they'll say when it's coming.

Here's a clip of Menken performing "Proud of Your Boy" and "Somebody's Got Your Back" from the concert at Destination D. It's here where he says that Aladdin "is coming to Broadway".

I hope Tim Rice is working with him on this. He did an excellent job filling the void left by Howard.

As long as they stick to the story from the film, I am super excited for this! I'm not so much a fan of a massive change up a la Mermaid (which to be fair was only the second half). Though I still loved that show so, so much.

Tim Rice coming on board is a must!

That is fantastic news! They must make a cast recording. And Jonathan Freeman MUST be Jafar.

Honestly, we already HAVE the film, so I don't want the show to just end up being the film all over again on stage plus padding to make it a 'full-length' show. No, this should go back to Howard Ashman's original vision. It was his baby, his dream project! This would be a perfect tribute to him, and maybe finally give him a posthumous Tony for lyrics. They need to stay as faithful to that version as possible, considering they have a back catalog of 13 songs he and Menken wrote for the original draft. They are:

Arabian Nights
Bakak, Omar, Aladdin, Kassim
Proud of Your Boy
Call Me a Princess
Arabian Nights (Reprise 1)
Arabian Nights (Reprise 2)
Friend Like Me
Prince Ali
How Quick They Forget
Humiliate the Boy
Arabian Nights (Reprise 3)
High Adventure
Arabian Nights (Final Reprise)

Plus, from the film:
One Jump Ahead (Its reprise wouldn't really be needed if Proud of Your Boy is back in. Proud of Your Boy is the big emotional point. The reprise is Proud of Your Boy-lite, in my opinion.) and, of course, A Whole New World.

Jafar's deleted song Why Me, by Tim Rice, (which seems to have been inserted into the scene where Jafar & Iago are discovering who the 'diamond in the rough' is, at least according to a video I saw of the Seattle production...) seems like it's pretty much in.

I think they should nix Jafar's Prince Ali reprise for Humiliate the Boy (to tie back into it being a sort of call-back to Proud of Your Boy) all they'd have to do to make that work is get rid of the Genie's three-wish limit and change it back to what it was in the original Arabian nights tale: unlimited wishes. This would, I think, in addition to restoring Howard Ashman's last written song ever, give us a more satisfying ending with Aladdin freeing the Genie.

So, this show is pretty much all ready to go. It doesn't NEED any additional songs. Ideally the song-line-up would look a little something like this:

Arabian Nights
One Jump Ahead
Babkak, Omar, Aladdin, Kassim
Proud of Your Boy
Call Me a Princess
Arabian Nights (Reprise 1)
Why Me
Arabian Nights (Reprise 2)
Friend Like Me
Prince Ali
How Quick They Forget
A Whole New World
Humiliate the Boy
Arabian Nights (Reprise 3)
High Adventure
Arabian Nights (Final Reprise)

-That's 16 total songs, and the overall story isn't TOO shaken up or unrecognizable from the film, while still harkening back to Ashman's original intent. They HAVE to use all of his songs, though. They're simply to good to let rot.


The only differences would be changing the Genie's limit on wishes, taking Abu out, since there isn't a feasible way to incorporate him onstage, and replacing him with the original friend characters Bakak, Omar and Kassim, and restoring the Narrator back to the original idea of having him sort of be a character who keeps cropping up and narrating story-developments through reprises of Arabian Nights.

Sorry if this sounds like annoying pet peeve, but isn't it spelled "Cassim " not with a K ?

It's Cassim in Aladdin and the King of Thieves and in my Aladdin and Ali Baba fairy tale classics book.

It's spelled Kassim in the Music Behind the Magic CD set in the lyric book and on the jewel case of the Aladdin Original Score CD.

Always loved The Music Behind the Magic set and would be ecstatic to see Ashman's original version come to life.

I'm going to be singing High Adventure to myself all day.

^Me, too! And Howard Ashman's performance of Friend Like Me? Robin Williams just DOES NOT compare!! I've always loved Jafar's Humiliate the Boy, too. It's just so...cruel and yet so bouncy and fun. Even as a kid it always upset me that Jafar didn't really get a chance to sing in the final film. (At least not substantially...the Prince Ali Reprise is barely 60 seconds long.)