Following a report over actors’ equity votes, The Hollywood Reporter let it slip that a Tangled Broadway show is in the works. Since the accidental slip of the tongue, Disney has confirmed that Tangled is indeed coming to Broadway! While not many details are known about the show, it can be assumed that it will be extremely similar to their show currently on Disney’s Magic cruise ship voyages to the Bahamas.
Composer Alan Menken and lyricist Glenn Slater worked together for the Tangled cruise show back in 2015. The first live musical adaptation of Tangled premiered later that year in November. The two wrote three new songs for the live musical adaptation as well as kept the majority of the original score from the hit 2010 film. Alan Menken has worked on several other Disney projects including Beauty and the Beast (film, live action, and Broadway show), Aladdin, and Newsies. He is a longtime collaborator of Glenn Slater, who worked on the original Tangled animated film, as well as the Tangled animated series, and The Little Mermaid Live.
Photo Credit: Disney
Recently, in an interview with What’s On Stage, Alan Menken confirmed that Disney is in fact going to make a Tangled Broadway show. Alan Menken hinted that this Broadway adaptation would be different from the version on the Disney Magic cruise ship. He stated:
“We’re already talking about [Tangled] for the stage… There’s a version that’s done on the Disney Cruise Line.”
The Tangled Broadway show is currently in the developmental stages and still undergoing broadway workshops. Although the original film came out over a dozen years ago, the film has remained a hit with fans and this likely inspired the Disney Theatrical Group to continue to expand the Tangled possibilities. So far, there has been of course the original film which came out in 2010, Tangled Ever After (a short film) which premiered in 2012, the cruise ship musical adaptation which debuted in 2015, and Rapunzel’s Tangled Adventure (the animated series) which premiered in 2017. All of these revolving around the floating lantern romantic movie have done well with audiences.
Photo Credit: Disney
The original film is based loosely on the Brothers Grimm fairytale of Rapunzel. However, in Disney’s heartfelt family style, they gave this lost princess magical hair, a roughian who is wanted by the royal family, and the dream to see ‘floating lights’ that only appeared on her birthday each year. This news also comes close to the announcing of the Tangled themed attraction confirmed to be coming to Tokyo Disney set to open in summer of this year which will feature a lantern festival ride, and a restaurant resembling the movie’s The Snuggly Duckling.