Robert Cohen - Theatre, Brief Version-McGraw-Hill Education (2016)

250 Chapter 9 The American Musical Theatre
For his 2005 Broadway revival of Stephen Sondheim’s Sweeney Todd, director John Doyle had his reduced cast of only
ten actors play the orchestral instruments as well as perform the characters’ roles. The astonishing innovation proved
a great sensation, and the show was nominated for six Tony Awards, with Doyle winning one for Best Direction of
a Musical. © Paul Kolnik
Parks (see the chapter “The Playwright”) and director
Diane Paulus (with music adapted by Diedre Murray),
opened on Broadway in 2012 (and in London in 2014).
More recently yet, the 2013 hit Motown: The Musical—a
“jukebox” play that celebrates the smash hits of African-
American artists on the seminal Motown record label—
played for two years on Broadway, and slam poet Saul
Williams starred in a 2014 run of Holler If Ya Hear Me,
based on the life and lyrics of Tupac Shakur.
THE DISNEY MONOLITH
No one has better mastered the global theatrical musical,
however, than the very American corporation known
as Disney, which since the 1990s has infiltrated theatres
worldwide with its productions of The Lion King, Beauty
and the Beast, Aida, Mary Poppins, The Little Mermaid,
Tarzan, Newsies, and Aladdin. Disney musicals, mostly
adaptations of very successful Disney films, profit commercially
from Disney’s bottomless financial resources
and worldwide name recognition. The celebrated
“Mouse” also has been credited with great theatrical
art, however, particularly in the designs of Bob Crowley
for Mary Poppins and the amazingly innovative designs
and staging of The Lion King by longtime avant-garde
director-designer Julie Taymor. The latter show (with
music by Elton John), opened on Broadway in 1997 and,
in April 2012, surpassed The Phantom of the Opera to
become the highest-grossing Broadway play of all time.
The Lion King has grossed $6.2 billion worldwide in boxoffice
income and currently plays in London, Melbourne,
Hamburg, Madrid, Basel (Switzerland), and Tokyo—
and tours throughout the United States. And the latest
Disney musical to hit America (its earlier version had
premiered in Berlin in 1999), The Hunchback of Notre
Dame, opened with great success in California in 2014