Mousekingdom Blog

It’s one of those Disney movies that is and will be loved for many years: The Lion King. It’s no surprise the movie has been adapted for the stage so many times. For example at Disneyland Resort Paris which has its own version.

Another version has been on the Lyceum Theatre stage in London. The production has gone into it night year and to celebrate BBC has release some great rehearsal pictures of the actors and the amazing looking masks they wear during the show. To see a collection of 8 pictures follow the link to the BBC In pictures: The Lion King pages.

Picture copyrights BBC.co.uk

As an add-on to my earlier review of the third episode of “Me Tarzan, You Jane” I have to report about the ratings of the episode - and those are even worse than the actual tv show. While the show was able to gain some ground from an entertainment point of view it seems the tv audiences have given up on it - and who couldn’t understand this considering the first two episodes? The third episode managed to attract pretty much the same number of viewers as thes econd episode, to be “exact” 1.37 million viewers (in all age groups) equaling a total marketshare of 4.4% (see report by Quotenmeter).

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I promised it (or should I say: I threatened it?) - I would review the third episode of what in the meantime can only be called the failed attempt to promote the Disney stage musical TARZAN in Germany … the casting show “Ich Tarzan, Du Jane” (Me Tarzan, You Jane). Enough introduction…

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It started out bad and has become worse - at least rating wise. Past Friday the second episode of the casting show “Me Tarzan, You Jane” was broadcasted on Sat.1 in Germany. And the search for the future Tarzan and Jane in the German premiere of Disney’s musical version of its animated hit movie “Tarzan” managed to loose parts of its way too small audience. From a total of 1.54 million viewers (5.0% of the market) the show went down to 1.35 million viewers, equaling only 4.4% market-share - as Quotenmeter reported. Whatever one personally thinks the show has to be considered a bomb by now. The German media business website DWDL even calls it a “megaflop”.

This is especially true if one considers that the second episode was the last episode covering the actually auditioning phase. Starting this Friday the “recall”-phase will beginn, in which the jury reduces the number of contestants during singing and dancing classes before viewers will be entering the game later-on in live shows. If the successful German version of “Pop Idol” is anything to go by, ratings have a tendency to go down (at list a bit) once the auditioning phase and the more serious recall-phase starts. If this trend should show up for “Me Tarzan, You Jane” it might spell doom for the show, as there isn’t much of a viewer-base to loose audience from in the first place. Just for comparison: the 5th season the German version of “Pop Idol” past Saturday had its first live show (after the auditioning and the recall recaps) and even with a slight downturn in the numbers it sill managed to attract more than three times as many viewers as “Me Tarzan, You Jane”: 5.15 million viewers (17.3% market share) according to Quotenmeter.

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Let’s get this out of the way first: besides families animated Disney features and the theme parks always have had a notable amount of gay fans. But while some minorities regularly raise a ruckus about their underrepresentation or any supposed to be “inacceptable” representation there has been but a peep from the GLBT corner - and when was it that you saw a character in an animated Disney feature that would be a member of the GLBT team?

[Keep reading after the break ... especially if you want to find one of the best spoofs ever of a scene from Aladdin!!]

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Day-in, day-out on certain days even twice do the big shows entertain thousands of guests on New York City’s Broadway - and that includes certainly Disney Theatrical’s latest production The Little Mermaid (if you are interested in the Original Broadway Cast recording of that one, check out my post from the past Monday). This is only possible thanks to large casts, which include so called “understudies”. Understudies are actors and actresses often performing in a smaller part of the show but have been trained to perform in one (or more often:) several lead parts of the show, requiring to memorize not only the signs, lines and the staging for one but several large roles in the show! And while they may not perform in the parts for months they always need to stay ready to jump in on a second’s notice if the lead gets ill.

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… under this title (OK, it’s German translation “Ich Tarzan, Du Jane”) the Stage Entertainment group is currently casting the male and female lead for its German production of “Disney’s Tarzan - The Musical” on TV. Wary of the bomb the show turned out to be on Broadway the show is now trying to garner enough pre-opening ticket sales on the German market to get it going at least long enough not too loose any money. How?

Easy more than 6 months prior to its opening in October 2008 in the Neue Flora Theater in Hamburg (originally constructed for the German premiere of Andre L. Webber’s The Phantom of the Opera) the show is getting a weekly prime time tv presence: the casting show of the before mentioned title on the German channel Sat.1. The same ploy was already used in the Netherlands, where a re-staged version premiered, that many critics lauded as better than the Broadway original. Unfortunately so far there are no reports which version Germany will get. But back to the TV show…

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… How many wonders can one cavern hold Looking
Looking around here, you’d think
Sure, sh’s got everything
I’ve got gadgets and [glitches] a-plenty…

Sorry to interrupt Ariel, but “glitches”? Shouldn’t it be “gizmos”? Ok, bad pun, I admit it … but I couldn’t resist. Sorry? You don’t know what I am talking about. OK, guess I should start telling the story from the beginning.

Originally I wanted to entertain you all with a short report about the Original Broadway Cast recording of Disney’s The Little Mermaid that was released last week.

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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.

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According to Playbill the original production of the stage musical version of Mary Poppins in London’s WestEnd has posted a closing notice. According to Playbill (a reliable, professional notice in this regard) Mary Poppins will fly into the WestEnd for the final time on January 12, 2008. The co-production of Cameron Mackintosh and Disney Theatrical featuring the world famous songs by the Sherman Brothers but much closer to the original stories by P.L. Travers than the classic Walt Disney feature opened in the Price Edward Theatre on December 15, 2004 which would mean a run of a bit more than three years. While such run would have to be called more than respectable for any show in the WestEnd it can be called doubtful whether the show really satisfied the expectation of the producers. Afterall The Lion King is still filling the Lyceum in the WestEnd long past the three year mark - even so fans had not to wait decades for that show to premier and it was at the time of its premiere not yet a story dear to children of several generations. But looking back it seems that the show suffered a classical problem of shows targeting families: problems to fill the 1,600 seats of the huge Prince Edwards Theatre during the week, when children are not taken out for the night by their parents.

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As is already well known 2007 is the year that Disney Theatrical finally gets the long talked about project of a stage version of Disney animated musical The Little Mermaid up and running. I really don’t want to rehash all the information here about the try-out tour or the fact that the show will replace Disney’s Beauty and the Beast on the great white way (aka the Broadway) in New York City. For that there is actually a really great source that I would like to present to you: a special blog dedicated to The Little Mermaid on Broadway. So if you look for updated news about the try-outs, casting, tickets, … right now this is a great place to go. The blog also seems to have gotten hold of some demo recordings of an earlier broadway workshop for the production…