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Nominated for a 2015 Outer Critics Circle Award for Outstanding Off-Broadway Musical and a 2015 Off-Broadway Alliance Award for Best New Musical, Disenchanted! features music, book and lyrics by Dennis T. Giacino, direction by Fiely A. Matias and musical staging by Matt West (Beauty and the Beast). The musical's exclusive worldwide representation of stage performance rights have been acquired by Theatrical Rights Worldwide (TRW), taking the "Princess Posse" to new audiences and new kingdoms across the world in seasons to come.
A "girls-night-out rebellion" (The New York Times) that's "funny and a touch wicked, with a pop score that delivers to great comic effect," (The Huffington Post), Disenchanted! defied the trend for Off-Broadway shows with its sold-out performances and critical acclaim during the initial limited engagement at the Theater at St. Clements which ran from November 26, 2014 through January 25, 2015. Time Out New York declared, "if you love fairy tales with a sassy modern twist, relief is here! The not-for-children musical revue Disenchanted! gives a saucy makeover to Snow White, Sleeping Beauty and other fairy-tale princesses." NBC New York hailed the show's "funny, irreverent, seriously talented cast of strong, hysterical women who give fairytales a new meaning," and Broadway Box raved, "Think 'Bridesmaids' for Disney Princesses! This sidesplitting adult parody of the Disney princess posse and its mega-talented cast will make you blush and feel nostalgia all at once. Who could ask for anything more?" The production transferred to Westside Theatre Upstairs where it began previews Thursday, March 19, 2015 and re-opened Tuesday, April 7, 2015. An Off-Broadway Cast Recording of Disenchanted! is forthcoming, details to be announced soon.
The 'storybook' journey for Disenchanted! began with an award-winning run at Orlando's International Fringe Festival in 2011 ('Best of Fest', Orlando Sentinel) followed by a sold-out run at Straz Center for the Performing Arts in Tampa, which propelled the licensing of over a dozen productions nationwide, from California, to New Jersey, Florida, Missouri, and beyond -- all of which have been met with widespread critical acclaim. Additional licenses and a North American tour are planned for 2016. International productions of the show kick off this summer with the first-ever Spanish language production, ¡DESENCANTADA!, in the Dominican Republic this Saturday, June 13. Later this year, China's leading commercial theatrical producer, Musical Theatre China, is planning a production in Shanghai.
Poisoned apples. Glass slippers. Who needs 'em?! Not Snow White and her posse of disenchanted princesses in the new musical that's anything but Grimm. Forget the princesses you think you know - the original storybook heroines have come back to life to set the record straight. After multiple sold-out runs nationwide, these royal renegades tossed off their tiaras to bring their hilariously subversive, not-for-the-kiddies musical to New York City - and The Big Apple will never be the same!
The idea for Disenchanted! was conceived by Giacino, a former history teacher. When teaching his class about the colonial settlement at Jamestown, Virginia, he couldn't help but wonder: What would the 'real' Pocahontas - a circa 1616, rough-and-tumble 10-year-old Powhatan girl - think of the fringed deer-pelt miniskirt and long, flowing hair donned by her 20-year-old counterpart in her 1995 movie comeback? A musician at heart, Giacino penned a musical number skewering the 'princess pop culture' that transformed Pocahontas from a revered Native American heroine into a pin-up vixen of the silver screen. Soon, Giacino found himself discovering a number of other 'princesses' who had been similarly misrepresented, and Disenchanted! was born!
The show's Off-Broadway cast includes Gaelen Gilliland, Becky Gulsvig, Jen Bechter, Lortel Award nominee Lulu Picart, Alison Burns, Soara-Joye Ross, Erin Leigh Peck, Karen Burthwright, and Anthea Neri. Disenchanted! features Scenic Design by Gentry Akens ("The Mickey Mouse Club"), Costume Design by Vanessa Leuck (Disney on Ice: Frozen - assoc, The Little Mermaid - asst), Lighting Design by Graham Kindred (Love Linda directed by Richard Maltby), Sound Design by Keith Caggiano (Cabaret & Bare), musical arrangements by Robert Meffe (Little Women) and additional arrangements and musical direction by Michael Raabe.
Don Frantz and Jonathan Pollard are joined in producing Disenchanted! by David Smith / Randy Klein, Musical Theatre China and Michael Feldman.
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