by Beth Keating
News/Review
DisneyBizJournal.com
July 26, 2020
Now that you’ve watched Hamilton three or four or seven times on Disney+, you are probably looking for some new Disney productions to fill your pandemic days. Disney Magic Moments is coming to the rescue. Offered up this week on the Disney Parks Blog, the previously recorded full-length version of Tangled: The Musical, features the original cast from the show’s opening in the Walt Disney Theatre onboard the Disney Magic.
A musical adaptation of the 2010 Tangled movie, this Broadway-style Disney Cruise Line exclusive opened in 2015, casting Elisha Ainsley as Rapunzel, Nick Pankuch as Flynn Rider, Katie Whetsell as Mother Gothel, and puppeteer/actor David Colston Corris as Maximus the horse. Tangled is based on the Grimm’s fairy tale of the lost princess Rapunzel.
The live stage extravaganza was created by a Grammy, Tony, Emmy and Academy Award winning team. Academy Award-winning composer Alan Menken and Grammy Award-winning lyricist Glenn Slater were the duo who brought you the soundtrack behind the animated film with all the Tangled songs that you know and love, and they added three new original songs to the Cruise Line production, including the opening number, “Flower of Gold.”
Adding to the collaboration is master puppet designer Michael Curry, who brings you the life-sized, mischievous Maximus the horse. Curry has previously won awards for his work with Olympic ceremonies and on Broadway, and has designed for such diverse entertainers as Cirque du Soleil, The Metropolitan Opera, Michael Jackson, Katy Perry, and Lady Gaga.
Tony Award winner Paloma Young is the designer responsible for Tangled: The Musical’s vibrant eye-catching costumes. You may know her work from Peter and the Starcatcher.
Bradley Kaye, scenic design, has been involved in a number of Disney Cruise Line productions, including Halloween on the High Seas and Aladdin – A Musical Spectacular, as well as in Disney Parks’ shows, parades, and locales, such as Star Wars Launch Bay. He has received a Lifetime Achievement Award from the Los Angeles Drama Critics Circle.
The energetic show takes place on a series of moving sets, an amazing feat when you recall that the show’s home is on a cruise ship with limited space. The opening number, with its appearing and disappearing elevator floor, is an ingenious way of giving all the backstory and exposition needed to jump right into Rapunzel’s tale, in a purely musical way, of course. The floating lanterns in the night sky later in the production are an especially fun touch that surely was even more enchanting in person in the theater.
To make your evening of viewing more complete, Disney Parks Blog also offers a recipe for making your very own purple and yellow Tangled popcorn to eat while you are watching the show. It’s not quite the same as enjoying one of the Tangled “Lost Princess” Dole Whip adjacent cones from Storybook Treats in the Magic Kingdom, or last summer’s limited edition Tangled éclair with its sugared flowers and miniature chocolate frying pan from Pinocchio Village Haus, but you can get the popcorn recipe here.
If you are hooked on Disney Cruise Line’s Broadway-esque productions, you might also like to catch a glimpse of the Beauty and the Beast production from aboard the Disney Dream. Back in April, at the beginning of the pandemic, Disney Magic Moments posted a 20-minute long, narrated and edited video of highlighted scenes from the Disney Cruise Line version of the Beauty and the Beast Musical.
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Beth Keating is a regular contributor to DisneyBizJournal.
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