Schwartz: HUNCHBACK Next for Broadway? — Page 3

I'd love to see Brian Stokes Mitchell as Frollo, but that's just me.

Cuccioli would be great too.

So is this happening before or after Aladdin? Isn't that one certainly going as well?

I just believe it deserves to be on stage. Finally Disney would have something geared towards older people. I think it would be smart of Disney to bring it to Broadway. I know it wont happen in the near future.
Just based on reviews, I have yet to see TLM, but I don't see any other Disney show closing before TLM. After that I think Hunchback would be the number one choice to bring to Broadway.
I can also see Mulan being great on stage, They could do so much with that. It can be Disney colorful, light, happy, then dark and serious. The design elements of it... what I picture, WOW!

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Hunchback in Germany was a dark, gothic thriller, which is what the film basically was, in watered-down form. Having James Lapine come in to work on the book and direct really helped focus the show into what it should have been.

With Sweeney currently picking up steam in a major-league fashion (just won two Golden Globes), I think the time will be ripe in the eyes of many producers for dark musicals to make a return to Broadway, in hopes that they will get residuals from the films for mounting first-class revivals that were then a major rights purchase in Hollywood (agents negotiate things - look at Tom O'Horgan getting "conceived by" credit on JCS when it was actually written a year before he knew about the project). In that environment, Hunchback would not only survive, it would be an extremely wise move on Disney's part.

Other producers are interested in dark musicals, which also makes the environment good. Leonard Soloway is interested in Tanz der Vampire, for example, though hopefully that will come to fruition a while later, when DOTV is a forgotten memory.

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On a technical issue, I think the other main problem is an available theatre. Hunchback in Germany was a HUGE production, with almost the whole stage filled with hydrolic platforms and more platforms waiting in the wings. SO you need a theatre with a basement, huge wings and wide stage; none are available at the moment and the best ones probably won't be free for a while:
Winter Garden, nice and wide
Hilton, could work if YF does not last (but probabl;y will)
Gershwin, perfect (although the stage is shallow) but wicked isnt going anywhere.
Broadway would work if TCP closes
Palace, maybe

and thats really about all that can work well.

New Amsterdam does not have much room and other theatres like the Lunt and Rogers and Imperial are just too small, unless they reconcieve the comcept, which would be a shame.

but in the end, wasn't Tommy S. quoted as saying that this would probably NEVER happen?

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Just as long as they transfer what they had in Germany, and switched to the English language...it would be amazing! (or maybe even for some "concept" do the show in French...lol)

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After watching some clips you-know-where, I would absolutely love that version of Hunchback to come to Broadway. I always thought it was one of Disney's most theatrical scores, and the darker ending is beautifully tragic. I got chills watching it! I really, really hope it happens here. Disney, don't be stupid for once.

~Steven