download the broadway play the lion king

“I’m the CEO of the company, so I’ll do it.”Įisner ignored Stern. But when Eisner proposed a stage version of Beauty and the Beast, nobody at Disney wanted to do it. Broadway, like the movies, had become a global business. The hundreds of millions of dollars Cats had made around the world impressed Eisner. He ran into Andrew Lloyd Webber at an event in North Carolina and “began probing,” Lloyd Webber recalled.

This is a hobby we can do without.”Īnd then Frank Rich, the influential New York Times critic and columnist, raved about Disney’s animated version of Beauty and the Beast, writing that the movie had “the best Broadway musical score of 1991.” Eisner began to reconsider. But when he was running Paramount Pictures in the early 1980s, the company had produced Tommy Tune’s My One and Only and, he would later say, it was “the biggest nightmare of my life.” Though the show was a hit, Eisner reflected, “it took more time than anything I was doing at Paramount. Growing up in New York City, he’d seen just about every Broadway musical from the time he was six until he went off to college. The Lion King's popularity and success also helped solidify The Walt Disney Company as a major player in the theatre world.Michael Eisner, the chairman of the Walt Disney Company, had no interest in bringing the Magic Kingdom to Broadway.

Fans are still addicted to the lush soundtrack and some of the original songs from the musical have become karaoke faves. The Lion King has been performed in thirteen different countries and viewed by 80 million people across the globe. It’s now been twenty-three years since the musical’s premiere, and the show is still beloved and going strong. Related: Hamilton: Other Stage Musicals to Watch on Film The Lion King walked away with the Tony for Best Musical, as well as six others. Fans and critics were spellbound by the intricate puppetry and gorgeous music. Directed by Julie Taymor and produced by Disney Theatrical Productions, it kept all the characters and emotional beats of the original film, but brought a bold creative vision to every aspect of the story. Based on the 1994 cartoon The Lion King, the musical version debuted in 1997 to great acclaim.

Download the broadway play the lion king