A reimagined production of “Beauty and the Beast” will hit the road in 2025. Disney Theatrical Group, led by Andrew Flatt, Anne Quart and Thomas Schumacher, will present a North American tour of the musical beginning in June 2025 at Proctors Theatre in Schenectady, New York. “Beauty and the Beast” will officially open at the Cadillac Palace in Chicago in July 2025 before continuing on to the Orpheum Theatre in Minneapolis.
The full itinerary for the two-year tour will be announced. (There are no plans for a Broadway revival.)
Broadway’s original production of “Beauty and the Beast” opened at the Palace Theatre on April 18, 1994. It later moved to the Lunt-Fontanne Theatre, beginning performances in its new home on Nov. 12, 1999. The production closed on July 29, 2007. In total, “Beauty and the Beast” played 46 previews and 5,462 Broadway performances.
Based on the 1991 animated film of the same name, the stage musical features a book by Linda Woolverton (who wrote the original screenplay), music by Alan Menken and lyrics by Howard Ashman (who wrote the movie’s score) and Tim Rice.
Directed by Robert Jess Roth, the Broadway mounting included choreography by Matt West, scenic design by Stanley A. Meyer, Tony Award-winning costume design by Ann Hould-Ward, lighting design by Natasha Katz and sound design by T. Richard Fitzgerald. The production earned nine Tony nominations, including one for Best Musical.
“Beauty and the Beast” has also previously toured. Disney-produced North American tours of the musical played between November 1995 through August 2003, for a combined total of 2,893 performances.
Multiple members of the original creative team will reunite to craft this new 2025 touring production. In addition to Menken, Rice and Woolverton, West will return to direct and choreograph. He will reteam with designers Meyer, Hould-Ward and Katz. Illusion designer Jim Steinmeyer, who provided illusions for the 1994 staging, will also take part in the new tour. Rounding out the tour’s creative team will be sound designer John Shivers, projection and video designer Darrel Maloney and hair and makeup designer David H. Lawrence.
David Chase will provide music arrangements. Longtime Menken collaborators Michael Kosarin and Danny Troob will serve as music supervisor/arranger and orchestrator, respectively.
Jason Trubitt will be the production supervisor. Myriah Bash will serve as general manager with Anne Quart as executive producer.
Casting will be announced at a later date.
“We’ve heard from audiences for three decades now that ‘Beauty and the Beast’ has touched them in a profound way — these characters, songs and this sweeping story,” said Schumacher, chief creative officer of Disney Theatrical Group. “How proud we are, then, to bring this refreshed and human take on the show — with the scale and spectacle the title deserves — to longtime fans and an entirely new generation. This ‘Beauty’ is for them.”
