Is It Wrong That I Want A DIsney Musical To Win A Tony For Best Musical?

Disney shows tend to be incredibly commercial, mainstream, and lowest-common-denominator. And I don’t mean that in a negative way, I mean they are popular art that is designed to appeal to a mass audience. It’s just like how Marvel movies don’t tend to win Oscars—they are popular entertainment, but not the type of “high art” that usually gets awards.

All the shows you complain are “controversial” or “boring” are also incredibly skilled, ambitious, and touching works of art. If Disney is a cupcake with sprinkles, those shows are caviar or a finely aged wine. The cupcake may appeal to more people, but it’s not likely to win many awards.

When I finally saw The Lion King, it had already been running nearly 20 years at that point, a thought struck me. This is a great musical but I would be appreciating this so much more if I was a kid, because kids are the intended audience.

The Lion King proved a Disney show can win Best Musical, but it had to be the best Disney musical of all time for that to happen. Disney shows are at an inherent disadvantage with Tony voters because they're aimed at an age group younger than any Tony voter.

A Strange Loop, which takes place during the intermission of The Lion King, won Best Musical and that's probably the closest Disney is going to get to winning that award for a while.

I love the Tony Awards to bits, but it's not the end-all and be-all that determines how much I love or don't love a show. There are Best Musical winners that bore me to tears, and I've got all-time favorite shows that weren't even nominated.

I can think of three instances where I rooted for the Disney show to win Best Musical: 1. ''The Lion King'' over ''Ragtime.'' 2. ''Newsies'' over ''Once.'' 3. ''Aida'' over ''Contact.''

In fact, the Tony nominators didn't even NOMINATE ''Aida'' for Best Musical. They nominated instead: ''The Wild Party'' (68 performances); ''James Joyce's The Dead'' (120); ''Swing!'' (461) and ''Contract'' (1,010). Luckily, ''Aida'' was a bigger hit with audiences, running 1,852 performances, which is more than all 4 of those Best Musical nominees put together.

P.S. Originally produced by Hyperion Theatricals, ''Aida'' is now billed as ''Disney's Hit Broadway Musical.''

Updated On: 11/16/24 at 11:17 PM

Kad said: "You probably shouldn't put so much weight on what wins best musical. It's just an award, decided by maybe a few hundred people- a Tony doesn't even need majority voter support to be won, just plurality. If you love a show, Disney or otherwise, that's all that matters."

I agree. It's very well possible that in any year with 5 nominees, the actual Tony winner just won by 21% of the votes. For transparency it would be great to see % results (similar to US election) but the Tony Awards doesn't do that so we'll never know. We just know the winner.

I watched Lion King when I was 16 years old and again when I was 33 years old and I appreciated its art form more as an adult. I thought the musical production elevated the movie with its characterization of the lionesses and imagery/puppetry throughout the show.

I wish Disney Theatricals had a regional house or off-Bway house where they can focus on doing original family-friendly musical productions. I think the only time I had ever seen a Disney musical that wasn't a well-known IP already was Aida.

Disney will win another Best Musical Tony when they find the next visionary to completely redefine a project like they had with Julie Taymor on Lion King. The choices they’ve made for many of their more recent shows have been safe and that works, but it doesn’t win Tonys.

I would love to see a George C. Wolfe Princess & the Frog. Or perhaps a Michael Arden Tangled with Donna Murphy bringing her Gothel to the stage!

It is perfectly fine to root for Disney show to win Tony Award. Just understand that it will really have to being something special to win. I believe Julie Taymor's creativity in "Lion King" really put the shows' chance of winning over the top. It did not hurt having Elton John writing some wonderful songs that were also commercial. Like others have posted, Disney musicals are geared to children for the most part so Tony voters will tend to overlook them for awards unless it is incredibly special.

Regarding your opinions on shows winning Tony award, disagree a bunch. While you thought "Spring Awakening" was too controversial, many others found it to be great show with an excellent young cast. Personally, "Frozen" was not that good of a show or movie. Its popularity was all due to one incredibly successful/commercial song, "Band's Visit" while boring to you, struck others as a wonderful story of friendships, humanity and love of music. I will agree with you regarding "Newsies", it was great show filled with some excellent dancing and IMO should have beaten "Once".

If only Disney did Hunchback right, similar to it's Berlin run, then we might see another Best Musical Tony for them. I personally dream of them doing Cinderella a creative way that wins, and I have creative ideas for that, but yeah, that's pretty much a pipe dream. Still, like the movie is about, a boy can dream.