Sydney audiences and critics alike are being wowed by Disney’s Beauty and the Beast at the Capitol Theatre. Produced by Disney Theatrical Productions (Aladdin, The Lion King, Mary Poppins, Frozen) this new production received 5 stars from The Guardian, Time Out Sydney, Sydney Arts Guide and the Daily Telegraph, whose review described it as “a remarkable reimagination”. New performances through to 24 December 2023 have just been released.

With fabulous new sets, costumes and cutting-edge technology, the show-stopping production number ‘Be Our Guest’ also includes a brand-new tap finale featuring Lumiere, Belle, and all the enchanted objects of the castle. This spectacular number even saw the audience on its feet for a thunderous mid-show standing ovation on Opening Night!

 

 

About Disney’s Beauty and the Beast

Based on the 1991 film – the first animated feature ever nominated for an Academy Award for Best Picture – Beauty and the Beast opened on Broadway in April 1994 and garnered nine Tony nominations and one win. It played for more than 13 years on Broadway (before closing in 2007) and remains to this day one of the top 10 longest running shows in Broadway history. The 2017 live-action retelling of the animated classic starring Emma Watson quickly became the highest grossing live action film musical of all time, a record beaten only by The Lion King live-action release in 2019.

The original Australian production of Beauty and the Beast opened in Melbourne at the Princess Theatre in 1995 starring Rachel Beck in the role of Belle, Michael Cormick as the Beast, a young Hugh Jackman as Gaston, and the late Bert Newton as Cogsworth. The production played for over two years across Melbourne and Sydney and won the 1996 ARIA Award for Best Australian Soundtrack/Cast/Show Release.

The structure and tone of the story and score – as conceived for the 1991 film by its executive producer and lyricist Howard Ashman with a continued evolution for the Broadway adaptation three years later – made Disney history. Only once before – in Menken and Ashman’s previous film musical The Little Mermaid – had a Disney film been structured like a stage musical where the songs are integral to plot and characterisation rather than only ornamental or digressions. This Menken/Ashman innovation is credited with the 1990’s Disney animation renaissance that went on to create such film classics as Aladdin, The Lion King and Hunchback of Notre Dame and helped re-introduce the book musical form to popular culture.

This new stage production of Beauty retains the lush period sound of the Oscar-winning and Tony® award nominated score – which brought classics including Be Our Guest and Beauty and the Beast, as well as Change in Me, added to the musical production in 1998 and retained thereafter. New dance arrangements by David Chase, have allowed original choreographer Matt West to re-visit his work. Long-time Menken collaborators Michael Kosarin and Danny Troob are musical supervisor/vocal arranger and orchestrator, respectively.

Completing the design team, Tony® award winner John Shivers is sound designer, Darryl Maloney is the video and projections designer, and David H. Lawrence is hair designer. Jim Steinmeyer is the illusions designer, as he was on the original 1994 production.

Beauty and the Beast will be produced in Australia by The Walt Disney Company and Disney Theatrical Productions, under the supervision of Thomas Schumacher.

The Australian premiere of Disney’s Beauty and the Beast is proudly supported by the NSW Government through its tourism and major events agency Destination NSW.

For more information please visit www.beautyandthebeastmusical.com.au