Beauty and the Beast Revival Coming To Broadway — Page 5

I'm still a little annoyed about the scaled-back vocal harmonies and half hour of material removed from the licensing version as of 2019. The grand excesses of BATB were part of the appeal.

That’s how the recent UK version was.

I predict Arden will be the director. He’s been auditioning something, said he has a few projects in the works, and he has a history with Disney and Menken through Hunchback. They didn’t do right by him there, but I feel like his recent directorial successes would make Disney want to work with him again. We’ll see!

I’m interested to see if they use anything from the UK Tour / Australian transfer.



When the UK tour was first announced everyone assumed it was testing the water for a Broadway revival. But then it hit several problems:

1. The director got fired because of comments made about the Scott Rudin and Karen Olivo situation, and the choreographer had to take over directing duties shortly before rehearsals started (I think?)


2. Idk how much of the director’s original vision got stuck to, but while I personally enjoyed it it was very scaled back in terms of set and spectacle (except Be Our Guest, which had everything and the kitchen sink) and had a much more UK Pantomime vibe to a lot of it - which is fine for a UK touring audience, but it probably wouldn’t work with an American crowd.

3. The original guy they cast as the Beast got fired for being a creep to female cast and crew members backstage (I’ll say ‘allegedly’ idk the legalities of the situation) which led to a mad few weeks of constant understudy switch-arounds to cover roles until they found a new performer (who was better in the role anyway so it was a great choice)

4. The tour got interrupted over Christmas due to UK COVID lockdowns and testing stuff



It did go to the Palladium over the summer once everything had settled down, but I think all the issues and the reception to the production kind of killed any Broadway transfer plans (this is me massively speculating though, I have zero inside knowledge) - but the producers did quickly fly out and get an agreement to transfer it to Australia where it’s currently running.



But anyway TL;DR I wonder if any of the production (set pieces, costumes, directing choices etc.) will get carried over to a Broadway production, or if they will scrap it all and redo it from the ground up.

I’m surprised Disney is doing such cuts to what is arguably their most artistically successful stage adaptation. The show doesn’t drag, the new material cohered well with the songs from the movie, and at this point everybody knows it.


It could definitely use a new vision for the physical production, but the material itself is pretty darn great.