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DISNEY'S ALADDIN Jr.: THE AUTHORS ALAN MENKEN (Music): Stage credits include Little Shop of Horrors; Beauty and the Beast; A Christmas Carol; King David; God Bless You, Mr. Rosewater; Real Life Funnies; The Apprenticeship of Duddy Kravitz; Weird Romance; and Der Glockner von Notre Dame. Film credits include The Little Mermaid, Beauty and the Beast, Aladdin, Newsies, Pocahontas, The Hunchback of Notre Dame and Hercules. Other achievements: a Billboard #1 album (Pocahontas) and #1 single ("A Whole New World"). Awards include eight Academy Awards, seven Golden Globes, 10 Grammys, the London Evening Standard Award, the Olivier, the New York Drama Critics Award, the Drama Desk and the Outer Critics Circle Award for Best Musical. Currently playing at the Virginia Theatre: a revival of Little Shop of Horrors. A new Disney animated musical, Home on the Range, will premiere in March ‘04. Upcoming: live-action film adaptations of A Christmas Carol and The Hunchback of Notre Dame plus stage adaptations of The Little Mermaid and Leap of Faith.Visit the official Alan Menken web site at disney.go.com/DisneyRecords/Biographies/Menken_Bio.html  HOWARD ASHMAN (Lyrics): While artistic director of the WPA Theater, Ashman conceived, wrote and directed God Bless You Mr. Rosewater and Little Shop of Horrors, both with music by Alan Menken. Recipient of an NEA grant, his play The Confirmation was produced at Princeton's McCarter Theatre. In 1986 Ashman wrote and directed the Broadway musical Smile (music by Marvin Hamlisch). Turning his talents toward animated musicals, Ashman was pivotal in the development of Disney's The Little Mermaid (producer and lyrics) and Beauty and the Beast (executive producer and lyrics). He also wrote the lyrics for many of the songs from Aladdin. His numerous awards include two Oscars, two Golden Globes, four Grammies, a Drama Desk and a London Evening Standard. TIM RICE (Lyrics): Born 1944 in leafy Buckinghamshire, England. First represented on Broadway as lyricist of Jesus Christ Superstar in 1971, failing to win a Tony®, or frankly, many good reviews. He put this down to jealousy until his second Broadway effort, Evita, received an even worse critical mauling, which made him contemplate the ghastly possibility that he might not be any good at his job. However, he won two Tonys® for Evita and decided to carry on regardless. His first musical written with Andrew Lloyd Webber (as were those other two) was Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat, and that finally made it to the Great White Way in 1982, doing fairly well there for a while. His fourth Broadway musical was Chess, written with Bjorn Ulvaeus and Benny Andersson, an unmitigated commercial disaster in 1988. But this is actually a terrific show and will return. More recently his name has been spotted on NYC marquees relating to King David, Beauty and the Beast (both with Alan Menken's music), The Lion King and Aida (both with Elton John's). Aida, Tim won another Tony®, with Sir Elton, for the score. At one point, in 2000, he had four shows on Broadway simultaneously, but no one else noticed. He has also written the lyrics for the musicals Blondel (music by Stephen Oliver), Heathcliff (John Farrar) and Starmania (Michel Berger), but no producer has yet wanted to risk these in New York. He is very famous in England, primarily for being a cricket lover, but can stroll around the Big Apple unrecognized except by British tourists. He has three Oscars and a Knighthood, three children and a home in sunny Cornwall.JIM LUIGS (Book Adaptation & Additional Lyrics): Jim Luigs wrote SPREAD EAGLE, which was produced at the WPA Theatre in New York, starring Brian Murray. He was commissioned by the Seattle Opera to create the book and lyrics for DAS BARBECÜ, a country- western spoof of Wagner’s RING CYCLE, which was subsequently produced off-Broadway at the Minetta Lane Theatre, where it received three Drama Desk nominations and was also nominated as “Outstanding Off-Broadway Musical” by the Outer Critics Circle. He adapted the book and wrote additional lyrics for the musical,DISNEY'S ALADDIN JUNIOR. Regionally, his plays and musicals have been commissioned and/or produced by Actors Theatre of Louisville, ACT (Seattle), Asolo Theatre (Sarasota), Center Stage Dallas Theatre Center, George Street Playhouse and Goodspeed-at-Chester, among others. BRYAN LOUISELLE (Music Adaptation and Arrangement): Bryan Louiselle has composed scores for the documentaries SAINT AND STRANGERS and PRISONERS OF HOPE, THE LATE MIDDLE CLASSES for Williamstown Theatre Festival, RED MEMORIES for Stage and Film, and PEARL PASSION for the Pearl Theatre Company. He has arranged/orchestrated for: BROADWAY'S BEST FROM BRAVO, The Yale Tercentennial, Radio City Music Hall, Cole Porter's 100th BIRTHDAY CELEBRATION at Carnegie hall, two Presidential Inaugural Galas, the Super Bowl half time Show, and the Miss America Pageant. Louiselle conducted DREAM, BUTTONS ON BROADWAY the RADIO CITY MUSIC HALL CHRISTMAS SPECTACULAR and EASTER EXTRAVAGANZA. In addition, he is a composer, lyricist, arranger, orchestrator, producer, conductor and vocalist for the 2002 and 2005 editions of Silver Burdett Ginn's MAKING MUSIC CD series. Louiselle is the resident music adapter, orchestrator and recordings producer for Disney's Broadway JR and KIDS Collections. |
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