TARZAN Celebrates First Anniversary in Germany

TARZAN®, Disney's musical based on the stories of Edgar Rice Burroughs and the 1999 animated film, celebrated its first anniversary at the Theater Neue Flora last night with a special gala performance attended by the show's composer and international recording star, Phil Collins. The Hamburg production continues to be one of the most popular shows in Germany having played to more than 714,000 guests in its first phenomenally successful year.

Co-presented by Stage Entertainment, Disney's licensing partner in Europe, the Hamburg production of TARZAN® is a spectacular, immersive version of the musical where audience members are surrounded by scenic elements and performers acrobatically swing through the air throughout the theatre. Guided by much of the creative team that created the original Broadway production, this new interpretation of the show was developed for the Circus Theatre in Holland, where it played a record-setting 900 performances and was seen by more than 1.6 million people making it one of the top five most successful musicals to ever play in that country.

TARZAN® is based on the story Tarzan of the Apes by Edgar Rice Burroughs and the Disney animated film and features music and lyrics by Phil Collins. The original cast recording of the Broadway production of TARZAN® was released by Walt Disney Records and is available in music stores nationwide and at online retailers including Amazon, iTunes and Disney Shopping. TARZAN® made its world premiere on Broadway at the Richard Rodgers Theatre in May, 2006.

Disney Theatrical Productions was formed in 1994 and operates under the direction of Thomas Schumacher. In November 1997, Disney opened The Lion King which received six 1998 Tony® Awards including Best Musical, and the 1998 GRAMMY® Award for Best Musical Show Album. In addition to the Broadway and North American touring companies, The Lion King can currently be seen onstage in London, Hamburg, Tokyo, and Paris. May 2009 marked the first-ever opening of a Disney Theatrical show in Las Vegas: The Lion King at Mandalay Bay. The company's inaugural production, Beauty and the Beast, played its final Broadway performance in July 2007 and is currently performing in Sao Paulo, Russia and Italy. Elton John and Tim Rice's Aida opened on Broadway in March 2000, received four 2000 Tony® Awards and the 2000 GRAMMY® Award for Best Musical Show Album, and ran for four-and-a-half years. In 2009, Aida re-opened in Tokyo. Mary Poppins, a co-production by Disney and Cameron Mackintosh, opened in December 2004 in London, completed its successful run in January 2008 and recently finished a smash-hit UK tour. The Tony Award®-winning Broadway production opened in November 2006 at the New Amsterdam Theatre, where it continues to play, and the first US tour began in spring 2009 and an Australian production is set for summer 2010. Tarzan®, which opened on Broadway in the 2006-2007 season, is now an international hit with an award-winning production in Germany and a record-setting one in Holland that closed in May 2009. In January 2008, The Little Mermaid opened on Broadway with a score composed by eight-time Academy Award® winner Alan Menken and the legendary Howard Ashman, with new lyrics by Glenn Slater, and was the #1 selling new musical of that year. Having completed its run in August 2009 playing to sold-out summer audiences, the national tour is slated to launch in fall 2010. In addition to producing musicals, DTP licenses stage performance rights to more than a dozen Disney musicals to schools, community groups and professional theatres around the world through Music Theatre International.

 

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