Episode 35 - The Neon Lights are Bright on Broadway, 1994

The 1994 Broadway season was highlighted by the industry-shaking arrival of the stage adaptation of Disney's Beauty and the Beast - an otherwise unremarkable show which nonetheless changed the way musicals got made from that point forward. Previous successful movie-to-stage musical transformations of the '80s and '90s - including Kiss of the Spider Woman, Nine, Grand Hotel, and Little Shop of Horrors - are discussed, plus the complications around turning Beauty and the Beast into a live-action product, and all the lessons Disney learned from this endeavor. Since '94, it has been a parade of these sorts of shows, with decidedly mixed results - musical versions of Back to the Future, Mean Girls, Rocky, Dave, Bend it Like Beckham, Debbie Does Dallas, Silence of the Lambs and, of course, Lin-Manuel Miranda's Bring It On get a hard look from the hosts. Sarah & Joe are stepping out onto the Great White Way for this star-studded thirty-fifth episode of It Happened One Year!