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Disney’s Influence & New Musical Styles
The 1990s
The 1990s were a decade marked by economic growth, globalization, and the expansion of digital technology. After the Cold War ended in 1989, the United States emerged as the sole global superpower, and the country experienced a period of relative political stability. Culturally, “The World Wide Web” exploded, cable TV and home entertainment increased in usage and availability. Additionally, there was an increase in teen-focused content and youth culture, including MTV, grunge music, and hip-hop. This movement however, furthered the lack of media attention and general interest on Broadway.
With the exception of mega-musicals of the 1980s, by 1990, few memorable musicals were on Broadway. This furthered the stigma around musical theater which became known as a “quirky subculture” (Kenrick, 1996). With the exception of tourists, students, and regular theater-goers, “Less than five percent of the American public was attending the theatre on a regular basis, and most people went for years without even hearing a show tune” (Kenrick, 1996).
Broadway faced cultural isolation and lost touch with the mainstream audience, particularly those of younger generations. Musicals were seen as outdated and irrelevant. To survive, Broadway musicals needed a rebranding to attract a new audience. This materialized in the transformation of Times Square. Long infamous for crime and adult entertainment, by the late 1990s, the area was redeveloped with the help of corporations like Disney, who saw potential in bringing Broadway back into the cultural mainstream.
“In less than a decade, an area once viewed as a decaying neighborhood overrun by porn shops and peep shows has become a slick, commercialized vacation destination” (Wollman, 2002).
This transformation allowed Broadway to become more welcoming to families and tourists. By physically cleaning up the area and promoting its new safer image, the theater district became a more desirable and accessible destination. At the same time, Broadway musicals themselves began evolving both in subject matter and physical presentation.
Newer shows like Rent (1996) and The Lion King (1997) incorporated fresh themes, engaging music, and thought-provoking visuals. These musicals resonated with younger demographics and marked a turning point in Broadway’s content. Further, “...the presence of entertainment companies.. allowed for the reclamation of a much-desired demographic that the musical theater lost after the 1950s. Due in large part to the increase of both youth-oriented marketing and subject matter, as well as a significant increase in the reduced-rate tickets that corporations [could] afford to offer, attendance at commercial theaters among people under the age of twenty [was] on the rise after decades of decline” (Wollman, 2002).
This shift in content and marketing reconnected Broadway with young-adults, children, and families. By the end of the decade, Broadway was no longer just for tourists or typical theater-goers, but rather, it was reentering pop culture through a reinvention.
Anyone looking to cast for Mimi?
"THE LION KING GOES BACK TO THE ESSENCE OF WHAT THEATRE IS ALL ABOUT, WHICH IS TO SUSPEND YOUR DISBELIEF. ..THEY ARE BROUGHT BACK TO THEIR EARLIEST EXPERIENCES OF MAKE-BELIEVE."-JULIE TAYMOR
The Lion King played a large role in the 1990’s Broadway rebranding by redefining what a commercial musical could look and feel like. The musical was visually bold, family-friendly, and had global appeal, which helped to further Broadway’s re-entrance into mainstream culture and stabilize it financially.
When The Lion King opened on Broadway in 1997, it was different from other Disney theatrical adaptations like the earlier Beauty and the Beast. The director, Julie Taymor, combined puppetry, masks, and African influences to create a completely original visual experience onstage. As Vanity Fair describes the atmosphere during the show’s debut, “People were standing on their seats, cheering and applauding... Taymor, Schumacher, and Schneider looked at one another and burst into tears” (Riedel, 2020).
The emotional audience reaction captured the groundbreaking nature of the production, which has allowed it to survive on Broadway for almost 30 years. The Lion King proved that a Broadway musical could blend untraditional artistic experimentation with mass appeal. But it was not just a creative success, it was a commercial one as well.
Beyond its artistic influence, "The Lion King cemented Broadway as a destination not just for theatergoers but for families and tourists. Those tourists have become a huge force in the health of the Broadway industry, and a big reason that shows…can sustain runs measured in decades” (Cox, 2017).
The Lion King brought in a new demographic that revitalized Broadway’s economy. It became the blueprint for a more inclusive and financially stable Broadway that welcomed crowds from all walks of life.
A show that failed to revitalize the Broadway musical was Frank Wildhorn’s The Civil War. Despite a Tony nomination, it flopped hard, only running for 61 performances after 35 previews. It premiered on Broadway in 1999, and attempted to dramatize one of the most crucial and politically charged periods in American history.
Instead of telling a cohesive story with intriguing characters, the musical relied heavily on a sequence of loosely connected pop songs. As a result, it struggled to offer the emotional depth or clarity audiences hoped for and ultimately lacked the resonance and strong storytelling that define successful musicals.
“The show is essentially a song cycle in full battle dress: a series of numbers performed for the audience (or rather at it) by a cast of generic soldiers and slaves that never for a moment engage us as dramatic characters” (Isherwood, 1999).
Without a central plot or emotional stakes, the musical became more of a historical concert than a Broadway experience. By presenting interchangeable roles and skipping over the emotional aspects of the period, the show reduced a painful chapter of American history into a shallow production. The result was a musical that talked to the audience rather than engaging them, robbing it of any impact. In addition to its creative struggles, the musical struggled with scale. Instead of narrowing its focus to a specific perspective or narrative, it tried to represent the entire war (militarily, politically, and emotionally) into a single show.
This broad approach prevented it from connecting to the kind of real-world struggles or lived emotional truths that make musicals powerful. The result was an overwhelming and incoherent production.
“The Broadway version of The Civil War, in Rayne’s view, was a case of a show trying to do too much on too grand a scale” (Boehm, 2000).
The Civil War collapsed under the weight of its large ambition. Even in its restaged touring version, For the Glory, director Stephen Rayne abandoned the original theatrical approach and turned to a concert-style format, an acknowledgment that the initial production tried to do too much without the structure to support it.
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