New Disney MTI Jr/Kids Shows

Four new adaptations of Disney movies - Frozen Kids, Moana Jr, Newsies Jr, and Finding Nemo Jr - were announced to be released over the next two years for regional licensing. While Frozen and Newsies weren't huge surprises, especially with pilot productions, Finding Nemo Jr. and Moana Jr. seem to hint at new interest in developing those two shows further. (Finding Nemo has been a musical at Walt Disney World for years, but this is the first inkling of any stage adaptation of Moana.). Could these two musicals be in the works for the Great White Way in years to come?

If MOANA does become a full-length Broadway spectacle, it will undoubtedly go the FROZEN route and have a ton of new material written for the adaptation. It's not like Lin-Manuel Miranda is afraid of hard work...Lol

I agree that I'd love to see more young performer versions of "classic" shows. I think Tams-Witmark recently released a kids' version of ANYTHING GOES, which is fascinating to me. That being said, keep the JR. label away from anything Sondheim...Into the Woods Jr. is enough...I can't wait for the 15-minute masterpiece that is A LITTLE NIGHT MUSIC JR.

I am SO incredibly happy to see Finding Nemo finally getting out there. One thing of note is that while something like Moana will have to cut down on content in the 60-minute format, Nemo will actually have to add about 20-25 minutes of additional content. I'm guessing basically all of the original show will be retained, with minor adjustments here and there. No idea what they would add from the film, though. The whale? The filter scene? Just making the scenes longer in general? Everything does feel pretty rushed for time, even just listening to the cast album, so more dialogue/dance breaks sounds fun.

As for Newsies, I'm interested to see what'll have to go. Everything seems fairly important to the plot, which is quite good but also quite difficult. I personally think the parts with Medda wouldn't really be necessary or entirely kid-friendly, but I'd still love to see her make the cut. As for everything else, it's really hard to say. My guess is they won't include "Letter from the Refuge," considering we already know the show works without it. I'd also love to see less reprises of "Carrying the Banner," of which there are many.

I'm so thrilled that Finding Nemo will finally be available for the public! That's one of my favorite shows at Disney World and I saw it three times during my internship last year. It's some of the Lopezes' best work.

I'm shocked that Moana got a show before Tangled and even Coco. I guess the hair logistics for Tangled is very complicated to solve for schools. Hopefully, this will lead to a full Broadway show.

And disneybroadwayfan2, I LOVE Finding Nemo at Disney World, too! We just saw it a few days ago, and it was just as good. It's also gotten a resurgence in recent years - mostly from the current cast of Dear Evan Hansen.

Looks like Finding Nemo will still just be the 60 minute one act version and it won't be available until 2021.

copskid949 said: "It’s not even an hour as it currently stands. Disney really limited how long the show could be. At minimum it’s more like 35-40."

I apologize. It’s listed on their page as 60 minutes but probably only because it’s over the 30 minute mark.

https://www.disneytheatricallicensing.com/browse-shows/60-minute-shows

The Finding Nemo runtime is easily going to reach 60 minutes for the JR version. Disney has, in the past, added songs from other films to their JR versions to make them run a little longer (Alice in Wonderland has Zip-A-Dee-Doo-Dah, for example). They'll add in reprises, extra choruses with a larger ensemble, and additional instrumental scoring to expand book scenes with movement and/or dances. There's also usually a pretty lengthy song at curtain call.

Frankly, their JR shows tend to run longer than an hour because of the amount of scene changes and length of the book scenes (Beauty and the Beast JR and Mulan Jr can easily hit 90 minutes if you use all the underscoring and listed scene changes).

Moana Jr is only a surprise because I hadn't heard of any pilot productions yet. It's a no-brainer for an adaptation since the film is still so popular. They're also testing out stage versions of Twice Charmed (one of their cruise ship shows) and Descendants this summer. The rights for the ones they move forward with are usually available within two years.

There are two more non disney jr shows in the works as well. Something Rotten Jr. and 13 Jr. What do you guys think?

MollyJeanneMusic: Thanks for the info on ''Newsies, Jr.''!

And does it include ''Brooklyn's Here'' and ''Once and For All,'' too?

It is in Disney's best financial interest to create Jr/Kids versions of all their animated films, so the fact that they exist doesn't necessarily lend itself towards any Broadway aspirations or plans.

However, this is not the first time a stage adaptation of Moana has been planned. Moana was one of several films on the table for a potential stage musical in the theme parks. The Magic Kingdom was supposed to get an expansion of Main Street USA with a large "Main Street Theater", capable of hosting live shows. Disneyland has a theater like this which currently houses a short version of Frozen (and before that, Aladdin). It would have been nice to have a house that could eat a thousand people in Magic Kingdom several times a day. But just as land clearing began, the Main Street Theater project was abruptly cancelled (well, officially "put on indefinite hold". Most people point to the deteriorating monorails as the culprit that sank the project (an EPCOT monorail door opened mid-ride, and a video circulated the web. So suddenly new monorail trains became a much bigger priority for Disney and their money). Moana (along with Mary Poppins, and a "disney hits" concert) was one of the top considerations for the Main Street Theater, but we may never get to see it come to life.