First Disney film adapted into a stage musical
- Who
- Beauty and the Beast
- What
- First
- Where
- United States (New York)
- When
- 18 April 1994
On 18 April 1994, the stage musical adaptation of Disney's 1991 blockbuster Beauty and the Beast made its debut at the Palace Theater on Broadway. This was the first time that Disney had adapted one of their films for the stage.
The idea of making a Beauty and the Beast stage show came from an end-of-year review by the influential New York Times theatre critic Frank Rich, who declared that Beauty and the Beast (the animated movie) was by far the best musical of the year.