A 'Mrs. Doubtfire' Musical Is Coming
During an interview with Entertainment Weekly, composer Alan Menken, who is probably most famous for working on Disney animated classics "The Little Mermaid," "Aladdin," and "Beauty and the Beast" (in addition to "Little Shop of Horrors," "Enchanted" and the recent, weirdly overlooked television series "Galavant"), admitted that he is turning "Mrs. Doubtfire" into a Broadway musical.
While Menken will be composing the score, David Zippel, who worked with Menken on Disney's "Hercules," will be writing the lyrics and Harvey Fierstein, who was in the movie and is something of a Broadway legend (having written books for "Kinky Boots" and "Newsies," among many others), will be writing the book. Otherwise, Menken was pretty cagey. "It's going very well, it's in its early stages, and that's probably all I can say," Menken told Entertainment Weekly. "We're really enjoying working on it."
The original "Mrs. Doubtfire," released in 1993 by 20th Century Fox, starred Robin Williams and Sally Field. Williams played a man who, in order to reconnect with his children during his divorce, disguises himself as a Scottish (female) nanny. Before Williams' suicide last year, there was some serious talk about doing a sequel to the film. This new musical will be the first product from a venture between Fox and Broadway producer Kevin McCollum. We're personally looking forward to the show-stopping musical numbers "Helloooooooo" and "It Was a Drive-By Fruiting."