All About Musicals

Disney’s Beauty and the Beast celebrates its 13th year on Broadway today, April 18th! It is now the sixth longest-running show in Broadway history.Incidentally, it will also be coming to an end on Broadway in July, playing its last performance at the Lunt-Fontanne Theatre on July 29th. It will be making room for a new Disney princess: The Little Mermaid. (Disney’s The Little Mermaid will begin previews on November 3, 2007 at the Lunt-Fontanne, with an official opening date of December 6th, 2007.)

Beauty and the Beast officially opened on April 18, 1994 at Broadway’s Palace Theatre . A few years later it moved from that theatre to make room for the musical Aida, and began its current run at the Lunt-Fontanne Theatre on Nov. 11, 1999.

On July 29th, 2007, the evening of its last performance, Beauty and the Beast will have played a total of 5,464 regular performances and 46 previews.

Beauty and the Beast is described as “the classic love story of Belle, a young woman in a small, provincial town, and the Beast, who is really a prince trapped in a spell placed on him by an enchantress. If the Beast can learn to love and to be loved, the spell will be broken and he will be transformed back to his former self. But time is running out, and if the Beast does not learn his lesson soon, he will be doomed for all eternity.”

Beauty and the Beast features a musical score by Alan Menken, Tim Rice, and the late Howard Ashman, and a book by Linda Woolverton, also the author of the original movie’s screenplay. The musical has been directed by Robert Jess Roth.

For more information visit the official Walt Disney Theatricals Web site at www.disneyonbroadway.com.

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