Hearing Casey Nicholaw is new director of Disney's 'Hercules' — Page 2

Hercules has great material. I think it just needs great visuals to match. 

This might have been addressed in prior threads but - How was the book at Paper Mill compared to the Park production? I didn't see it at Paper Mill. What were the major changes in the book and score?

lucynewlife said: "lapinitsa said:

Yes, he was. It was widely reported. And as Betty22 said, Menken himself gave Nicholaw credit for pulling the show together between Toronto and NY. Does the material for Herc give him the same opportunity? I dunno.

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Good point. IMO considering that the Toronto-to-Broadway Aladdin transformation largely revolved around "Emphasize the Genie as much as possible specifically because of James Monroe Iglehart being given standing ovations mid-show," and "cut all this extra material that was leftover from the earlier version of the film [all the Arabian Nights reprises, Call Me a Princess, etc]" I wonder if Hercules does have the same bones for a "make it palatable for mainstream audiences" as Aladdin did.

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The Aladdin stage show went through so many reimagining and incarnations that for nearly twenty years Aladdin Jr was licensed based on a very early draft of the stage version. It was only recently updated into a pared down version of the Broadway show.

 

Trailer from the Hamburg production: https://youtu.be/_GBmHA1xzds?si=-vLRfYD3cVOE6ami

The set and puppet designs are much better than previous incarnations IMO. 
I really wish they hadn’t slowed the tempo for Zero to Hero this much, it sucks the energy out of one of the most exciting songs.

Updated On: 3/24/24 at 11:10 AM