![]() In lieu of a shapeshifting cartoon character with the voice of Robin Williams, they put everything into the rapid-fire sass of James Monroe Iglehart, who, with the help of some pyrotechnics, lighting tricks, and sleight of hand, manages to inject much needed energy into the show. The Genie opens the show with the song “Arabian Nights,” but doesn’t return until towards the end of Act One where he kicks, flips, and riffs his way through a show-stopping version of “Friend Like Me.” Unfortunately, he sings it to her in absentia, because she is dead-poor lady just can’t seem to catch a break. It’s nice to see Aladdin (played by Adam Jacobs) finally get to sing the song to his mother. You may remember the latter as the song from a segment in the deleted scenes of the Waking Sleeping Beauty DVD, where storyman Ed Gombert breaks into tears trying to explain why no one wanted to see it cut from the film. ![]() While the addition of these characters leaves no room for Abu the monkey, Aladdin’s three friends are one of the most entertaining elements in the musical.Īll of the songs from the movie are featured, alongside four new ones written for the stage by Chad Beguelin, and three of the songs cut from the original treatment, “Babkak, Omar, Aladdin, Kassim” (performed above at the 2011 Seattle tryout), “High Adventure,” and “Proud of Your Boy,” a ballad that Aladdin sings to his mother. In the Broadway version, Aladdin and his friends are thieves who are trying to go legit by becoming street performers. In their version, Aladdin, much to the chagrin of his mother, is a busker who spends the days singing on street corners with his three layabout buddies Babkak, Omar and Kassim. The story is a mash-up of the movie version and an earlier version that songwriters Alan Menken and the late Howard Ashman wrote after working on The Little Mermaid. So now that it’s here, how does it compare to the animated Aladdin we all know and love? After seeing the musical a few days ago, here are my observations. It is the fifth Disney animated movie to be adapted for the Broadway stage ( Beauty and The Beast, The Lion King, Tarzan and The Little Mermaid precede it) and with The Hunchback of Notre Dame, The Jungle Book, Alice in Wonderland and Frozen in various phases of development, it certainly won’t be the last. ![]() ![]() After three years of tryouts and short runs in a total of four different cities, Disney Theatrical’s version of Aladdin finally opened on Broadway March 20th at the New Amsterdam Theatre. ![]()
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