Disney

TDR : Drama review, 2004, Vol.48 (1), p.164-177
Metamorphosis is the cornerstone of Disney animation. Princes are turned into beasts and lions into matinee idols. Accomplishing this filmic flexibility onstage is central to Disney's expansion into theatrical production. Broadway's Beauty and the Beast, and the productions that came after, show how the elasticity of film animation can be recreated live in the theatre.

Daily variety, 2012, Vol.314 (59), p.15

The Stage (Archive: 1995-2000), 2000 (6199), p.7

Theatre journal (Washington, D.C.), 1999, Vol.51 (3), p.285-298
The Disney Corp.'s theatrical production of 'The Lion King' embodies turning fictional constructs into marketable commodities. Presenting these cartoons on stage makes the commodities live, making the commercial products in stores more sympathetic.

The significance of brands within our media-intensive culture can hardly be overstated. Having emerged in the mid-20th century as platforms for the distribution of commodities, brands have since become, as scholar Celia Lury argues, “the logos of the global economy.” Brand interfaces not only differentiate mass production, but produce cultural assemblages that rewrite social and political relations. This dissertation concerns itself with the meaning of theatrical production within brand performance, with a specific focus on the Walt Disney Company.

This study investigates the ways that theatre professionals brought significant changes to the Walt Disney Company, from 1984–1994, in a period affectionately referred to, in popular discourses, as the “Disney Renaissance.” These individuals, including Peter Schneider, Linda Woolverton, Howard Ashman, Alan Menken, Bob McTyre, Ron Logan, Rob Roth, Matt West, Stan Meyer, and others came from Broadway, Off-Broadway, regional theatres, and local theatres, and represented a wide-cross section of theatrical disciplines, including production management, stage management, playwrighting, musical theatre, producing, directing, choreography, and design.

In 1994, Walt Disney Theatrical Productions ventured onto Broadway with Disney's Beauty and the Beast. New York City proclaimed a renaissance of 42nd Street; critics predicted a theme park takeover. By 1999, Disney Theatricals was firmly established as a financially successful Broadway producer and theater owner. Far from signaling the demise of Broadway predicted by critics, Disney's presence coincides with the contemporary recreation of the financially successful Broadway from 1900 to 1935.

This dissertation aims to analyse the re-creation and transformation of animated films into theatrical spectacles, by examining two Walt Disney animations and productions as case studies: Beauty and the Beast (1991 & 1994) and The Lion King (1994 & 1997), designed by Stanley Meyer (Beauty and the Beast [1994]) and Julie Taymor (The Lion King [1997]), respectively. Through a semiotic analysis of the productions viewed in the Monte-Teatro in Johannesburg (Beauty and the Beast [2007]) and the Lyceum in London (The Lion King [2010]), the scenographic choices of the designers are examined to ascertain the ways in which the re-creation and transformation from animation to theatre occurs.

Thesis Ph.D. University of California, Los Angeles 2017.
This dissertation proposes that we consider Broadway's history and genre development to be periodic rather than a singular trajectory of growth and inevitable decline. Chapter Two offers a close analysis of the scenographic practices in the output of the Disney Theatrical Group after 2000.

Thesis (M.A., Theatre) -- California State University, Sacramento, 2009.
This thesis examines Walt Disney Theatrical Productions construction of masculinity in live performance in the original 1994 Broadway musical Beauty and the Beast. Through an analysis focusing on the key male players the antagonist, Gaston; the father figure, Maurice; and the protagonist, the Beast this study critically discusses the techniques Disney utilized in order to create and metamorphose characters masculinity in live performance. As primary sources, the author turn to both the Broadway libretto and Broadway cast recording of Beauty and the Beast.

Dissertation--PhD; Columbia University, 2020.
This dissertation concerns itself with the meaning of theatrical production within brand performance, with a specific focus on the Walt Disney Company. Although there are many corporate producers in commercial theatre today—Warner Brothers, MGM, Universal, and Cirque du Soleil, to name a few—Disney has the distinction of being the first to make live theatre a cornerstone of its brand relationships. Disney has also had, in branding terms, the most depth, breadth and consistency of any global entertainment brand. Using the concept of assemblage as an applied framework, the author considers how Disney’s brand theatre functions as a form of communicative/affective capitalism, as an interface for consumer interactivity and exchange.