Mousekingdom Blog

Only recently fans had to deal with the closing notice for Disney’s Beauty and the Beast on Broadway and now the next closing notice is rolling in … Sure for many occasional theater goers Disney Theatrical has been one the role – thanks to the selective memory of the public for many occasional theater goers Disney Theatrical still wears the mantle of the infalible who score a hit with every project. Upon closer inspection though, Disney Theatrical had had its fair share of not so successful productions as well … coming to my mind are Disney’s The Hunchback of Notre Dame (world premiere in Berlin, long closed, never made it to any other location), On the Record (a touring show which originally had been expected to make it to the Broadway but never did), Aida (which touted as the next big thing after The Lion King fell out of favor with theater patrons rather fast on Broadway and never made it to the West End, but did open in the Netherlands and Germany at least) … and now: Tarzan.

Dismal reviews by professional critics deriding the lack of substance compared to the aerial acrobatics and the loud complaints of selected fans online about sight line interruptions from certain seats seemed to doom the show when it opened on Broadway. But to the surprise of many the show continued to hang on to dear life – alas the pre-opening advance sales of tickets had been more than just impressive and were enough to fill a decent amount of seats for more than just a few months (once again a success for the marketing department of Disney). But in the long run it just wasn’t enough, especially as tourists coming to New York have a wide choice of shows, including other Disney shows such as the new Mary Poppins musical.

So Playbill now reports that Disney Theatrical has published the closing notice for Tarzan. The last show is now scheduled for July 8, which will allow the show to rake up 486 regular performances (plus 35 preview performances). This closing notice comes rather surprising. Well, Broadway enthusiasts had expected a closure, but not on such notice. It seems even Disney Theatrical didn’t expect a need to close the show that early, as tickets for performances after July 8 had already been released to advance sales (holders of these tickets are asked to contact the location where they purchased their tickets for information on how to handle the situation).

Playbill cites Disney Theatrical producer Thomas Schumacher saying “I am disappointed that the Broadway production of Tarzan will close earlier than any of us had hoped, and I would have loved for it to have been as successful in New York as it is now in Holland. [...] I know that as we continue to produce Tarzan around the world, audiences will embrace it with as much enthusiasm as we put into creating it.”

It needs to be seen which further international productions Thomas Schumacher is hinting toward. Normally it could be expected that one will be in Germany, where Disney Theatrical’s partner is the Stage Holding, which already produced the show in the Netherlands. In fact once the show closes in the Netherlands the production’s sets could be moved to one of Stage Holding’s theaters in Germany reducing the costs of a production here significantly.

Speaking of the Netherlands: Tarzan there not only opened to impressive advance ticket sales (the trick here not only being the Disney brand and Phil Collins as composer but also the fact that the lead of Tarzan was casted in a tv-show) but also glowing reviews. Why? The creative team from the Broadway was able to correct many mistakes made in the original version of the show that were only discovered too late in New York, due to the lack of a decent out-of-town-try-outs. The result (according to reviewers who have seen both versions) is a much more engaging, substantial show. Too bad that Disney Theatricals robbed themselves of the chance to make the necessary adjustements prior to the Broadway premiere and thus of the chance to present a better show.

What many critics and dedicated Broadway fans singled out as a major mistake (the lack of out-of-town-try-outs) had originally been defended as a “necessity” due to the difficult rigging system for the aerial acrobatics. But that had been questioned from day one by many sources and the fact that Disney’s The Little Mermaid despite its similar difficult staging is now holding out-of-town-try-outs these days seems to proof the point that more of a “we don’t need these”-attitude might have been the real reason – which doomed the show in the end.

This entry was posted on Monday, June 25th, 2007 at 2:27 pm and is filed under Disney Music, Disney Theatrical. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.