For over eight decades, Disney has played a role influencing generations through its legendary animation films that have forever changed family entertainment - through its distinct storytelling and artistry. As children of Disney, many of us have grown up obsessively consuming films and music throughout our childhoods - and were responsible for tiring out VHS and DVD players as a result.
There is no doubt that even as we grow older, we still manage to sing along to every Disney hit word for word - one man is responsible for creating some of the most recognisable songs in history. For almost every great Disney movie and song that is itched in your memory is all thanks to Alan Menken, who is regarded as the ‘most essential’ composer in the world of Disney.
Alan’s legendary career is known to many, especially for his collaborations with Disney, that has led to being the recipient of the most Oscars than any living person - with a whopping eight Academy Awards to his name. From his works in iconic films such as The Little Mermaid, Aladdin, Pocahontas, to Broadway stage musicals Sister Act and Little Shop of Horrors, the list continues to grow.
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One of his most famed works, Beauty and the Beast, was first adapted for the screen as an animated film in 1991, which was nominated for a Best Picture Academy Award and later readapted for the stage in the West End and Broadway. 25 years after its Olivier Award-winning West End debut, Alan will be reuniting with his original creative team on an all new production- featuring all-time favourite tunes such as Belle , Gaston , and of course, Beauty and the Beast .
Ahead of Beauty and the Beast’s return to Bristol this September at the Hippodrome, as part of a UK and Ireland tour, we speak to the EGOT winning composer and pianist on bringing the timeless romantic tale to life on stage, and the transformative impact the musical has cemented in his life and profession.
Alan said: “I always think of myself as not only a composer, but also an architect- in that I design a house which is the [Beauty and the Beast] musical that others will live in, as well as Howard Ashman who was an amazing architect and as with Tim Rice.
“I’m just really excited for people to walk into this new Beauty and the Beast and experience it differently. It’s the same Beauty that people will love and it’s wrapped up in this amazing new package. In some ways it’s bigger, it’s more compact, it’s powerful, it’s really visually stunning. I can’t wait to see what people will think.”
The upcoming show, which will start from September 29 until November 12, boasts a talented cast such as Courtney Stapleton and Shaq Taylor, who take the lead as Belle and the Beast respectively- as well as other incredible talent such as the likes of 2013 X-Factor winner Sam Bailey as Mrs Potts and Tom Senior as Gaston.
With Menken retaining the exuberant sounds of the original score, the newest theatrical innovations such as a tap dance during the production number of Be Our Guest is determined to show how the latest retelling of Beauty and the Beast will spark its own unique effect on audiences of all ages.
Alan said: “There were some moments that have been removed so [the show] can be moving and more streamlined. There are moments that have been expanded- we have done rearrangements of songs and new choreography. What I love about it is all the work we do, on the one hand- yes it’s a finished product- but nothing on the stage is a finished product.
“Especially as the creators are still alive, it’s always evolving and Beauty continues to evolve in a really interesting way. In between, I also did the live action of Beauty [2017 film starring Emma Watson] with songs that were different from the stage show.
“The stage show was a major evolution from the animated, so for me, that was part of what I've been doing with Little Mermaid, Aladdin, Little Shop of Horrors, Hunchback [of Notre Dame] and Enchanted, and we’re now doing Disenchanted. Even if I wanted to, I can’t escape going back to my projects.”
He continued: “It’s always very exciting, sometimes a little exhausting. Being popular can be hard, you can never count on the amount of popularity that could happen, especially with projects like mine. I’m so blessed that they continue to have such an impact, decade after decade. Part of me says “yay” and another part of me says “When can I take a vacation?””
Alan explains that his creative process of bringing a refreshed perspective to the stage version of Beauty of the Beast boiled down to one thing - leaving room for collaboration. While embracing new creatives to helm the story of Beauty and the Beast to a new light, the project’s original roots hold a deeper significance to Alan, and one of which he describes as ‘intensely personal’ at the time.
He said: “Obviously when we created Beauty and the Beast, it was intensely personal and probably the most intensely private creative process I’ve ever been through. I was helping to shield my collaborator Howard Ashman, who was suffering from AIDS the entire time we wrote it.
“He could not let people know about that for most of the process because it was a death sentence in more ways than one. We were very protective and it was very much us and Linda Woolverton creating that first project. Now, my job is to be the keeper of the flame and say which are the things that are intrinsic to what we’ve always intended and, at the same time, support people who want to try new things with it.
“We have these new technological abilities to show things on stage in such a different way than before, so let’s try it. So my job is to step back and to watch, listen, give notes on it and in very few cases am I writing new material after all these years.
“Yet we included in this production some lyrics that Howard had thrown them out at the very end. There was a part in Beauty and the Beast that ended the movie and it ends the show as well.”
He added: “Of course over time, as cultural sensibilities change, we make room for so much more of a worldview of all the things we write. We have casting and how will those play and how will those affect the story- and how will those then affect the audience in how they receive it?
“I’ve had that in so many of my shows - I’ve obviously had that again on Aladdin and The Little Mermaid in a very big way, as well as Beauty.”
While Howard sadly passed due to complications from AIDS by the time Beauty and the Beast first hit screens in 1991, he is forever viewed as a formative figure to Alan. Ashman’s contributions can be felt greatly even today- as the late lyricist and playwright was even posthumously inducted as a Disney Legend alongside him.
As Alan continued to reach further heights with future music successes in Disney and beyond, he hopes to continue honouring the ground-breaking work he built with his former collaborator in the process.
“Howard Ashman, though he’s not here on a physical level anymore or whatever we determine as ‘physical’. To me, he’s metaphysically and spiritually very much here. I mean he comes to me in dreams and tells me to rewrite this or work on this. There isn’t a performance or something we wrote where I don’t have him next to me or in my thoughts and my heart as I watch it- it’s inevitable," he said.
"Do I know exactly what he’d think of each change? I can’t really predict that because he was always somebody with a surprising opinion- and he was always right and brilliant. There was the torch that passed from Howard to Tim Rice as my collaborator on Beauty, and also on Aladdin.
“I am blessed that I get to be a common denominator through all of that and it is a challenge to remain emotionally in the place where you were when you created it, because it never goes away, and remain present to where it is now- to be an active part of this new team in a way you were at the beginning.
“It’s a big challenge and it’s going back to that same well. But what makes the well really refreshing is that other people are contributing to that process.”
Alan had never anticipated that a show he had written during his mid-40s would play a ‘vital’ role throughout his career until today at the age of 73. Calling the Beauty and the Beast phenomenon ‘bigger than ever’, he states that he is ‘fortunate’ to be a part of a newly imagined story whose core themes of morality and the common good are never lost.
Even in the midst of the UK and Ireland tour, Alan will also be focusing on some of Disney’s highly anticipated projects to be released from this year such as the Enchanted sequel, Disenchanted and the much talked-about live-action remake of The Little Mermaid, starring Halle Bailey.
For Alan, he is truly astonished yet ultimately grateful that it all began by simply telling the stories of a mermaid who lived under the sea and a girl going to dinner with a beast every night.
Teasing what to expect next from him, he said: “[The Little Mermaid] is going to be really good. Halle Bailey is adorable and so talented. Rob Marshall is just an amazing director.
“And again as I said, every time I watch that, Howard is there on my shoulder when she sings Part of Your World - it’s like there we are again, right back to where we first wrote it. It’s very important and very moving- I think audiences are going to love it.”
For more information on Beauty and the Beast the Musical, you can visit their official website by clicking here.
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