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When 1990 passed without so much as one memorable musical appearing on Broadway, fans were dismayed but the world at large did not notice. The national media was ignoring Broadway, and musicals were little more than a quirky subculture.

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 showtune. There was a core group of regular theatre goers, consisting of students, aging suburbanites, tourists and gay men – at $60 a ticket, no one else had the disposable cash required. (Students often had access to discounted rush tickets, or the time to wait on line for standing room.) The most successful American hits of the early 90s were aimed at one or more segments of this core audience.

• Will Rogers Follies (1991 - 983) had a muddled book, but Tommy Tune's ingenious production numbers and a disarming performance by Keith Carradine in the title role kept folks cheering between yawns. Highlight -- Will and the Follies chorines stopping the show with a synchronized tambourine routine during "Favorite Son."
• Gays and students kept more adventurous shows running until word of mouth brought them a wider audience. Their favorites included Secret Garden (1991 - 706), an emotional and visually stunning adaptation of the classic children's tale. 
• Falsettoes (1992 - 489) gave a brilliant musical voice to the ongoing AIDS crisis. Producers hedged their bets with a pre-Broadway tour that covered all production expenses. Many expected this subject impossible to sell on Broadway, but several Tonys and a slew of rave reviews led to a profitable New York run.
• Jelly's Last Jam (1992 - 569) used the life story of composer Jelly Roll Morton to take a frank look at racial attitudes within the black community.
• Older theatergoers seeking a familiar product flocked to exquisite revivals of Guys and Dolls (1992 - 1,144), Carousel (1994 - 368) and Showboat (1994 - 946).
• Crazy For You (1992 - 1,622) reworked Girl Crazy into a giddy musical comedy with sensational choreography by Susan Stroman and a score of classic George & Ira Gershwin songs. Most of the credit went to director Mike Ockrent, who pulled it all together with style. Despite a long run, it took numerous tours and foreign productions for the show's investors to see a profit.
• Kander and Ebb's Kiss of the Spiderwoman (1993 - 922) mixed the showbiz dazzle of Chita Rivera with a gritty tale of homosexual love in a South American prison. It won the Tony for Best Musical but tied for Best Score with Tommy (1993 - 927), a stylish high-tech staging of The Who's popular 1969 rock opera.
• Nothing could keep Stephen Sondheim's somber Passion (1994 - 280) running for more than a few months. This ambitious look into the sometimes tragic price of human obsessions won several Tony Awards (including Best Musical) but closed within weeks of the ceremony.

"As If We Never Said Goodbye"
The British brought in more mega-musicals, but the once invincible trend was losing steam --

• Andrew Lloyd Webber's shallow soap opera Aspects of Love (1990 - 377) lost over $8,000,000 despite a year-long Broadway run. A major change was in the air.

• Cameron Mackintosh re-united most of his Les Miserables creative team to re-set Madame Butterfly in the middle of the Vietnam War. Miss Saigon (1991 - 4,097) opened in London and later conquered Broadway, after a ridiculous union fracas over casting British actor Jonathan Pryce as a Vietnamese character. One of the most successful mega-musicals, Miss Saigon toured the planet and sold mountains of souvenirs. In the US, suburbanites and tourists lapped up the lavish effects and tear-jerker love story. This was the last time Macintosh triumphed with his patented mega-musical approach.

• Blood Brothers (1993 - 840) told the story of two brothers separated by adoption who wind up on a collision course. This one lasted thanks to stubbornness rather than popularity – it never recouped its original costs.

• Thanks to a lack of competition, Webber's $11 million adaptation of Sunset Boulevard (1994 - 977) swept the 1995 Tonys, but it was a hollow victory. Although Broadway audiences worshipped when divas Glen Close, Betty Buckley and Elaine Paige took turns as Norma Desmond, the production had such a high running cost (heck, small towns used less electricity than this production!) that even a three year run could not turn a profit.

Other British mega-productions either died in London (Martin Guerre) or on the pre-Broadway road (Whistle Down the Wind), and expensive attempts to copy the British style (Poland's Metro, Holland's Cyrano and America's Shogun) failed on Broadway. The public had seen too many lavish spectacles that took themselves too seriously. The failure in London of Lloyd Webber's Whistle Down the Wind and Shoenberg and Boubil's Martin Guerre suggested that audiences on both sides of the Atlantic were tiring of the mega-musical and looking for something else.

The Corporate Musical: "Put Our Service to the Test"
The real winner in 1994 was a show that brought an unsettling change to Broadway. Beauty and the Beast (1994 - 5,464) was the first stage effort of Walt Disney Productions. It was no match for the animated film it was based on, but whatever the show lacked in finesse it more than made up for in box office appeal. People with no interest in the theatre were happy to pay top dollar to bring their children to Beast. True to form, the Broadway community pretended with all its might that nothing important was happening. Beast was pooh-poohed by the critics and denied the major Tonys, but a seasoned entertainment corporation with massive marketing clout was out to show the old pros a new way of doing things.

"We are bringing a new way of thinking to the theatre," says producer (of Beauty and the Beast) Robert McTyre, "both creatively and business-wise. On the creative end, the show is a very collaborative effort. with many more people involved and contributing than usual. And, on the business side, we bring financial discipline."
- Mark Lassell, editor, Disney on Broadway (New York: Disney Editions, 2002), p. 28.

Beauty and the Beast was replicated in cities all over the world, with actors giving careful imitations of the original Broadway cast in a rainbow of languages. Kids who loved the animated movie were delighted, parents were relieved to find a clean show, and the billions started rolling in. Souvenirs became a bigger money maker than ever. If the British wrote the book on auxiliary marketing, Disney built the library.

Broadway at 42nd Street: The newest "Disney World."

The triumph was complete by the time Disney's The Lion King (1997 - 2,000+, still running) came to Broadway. It premiered in The New Amsterdam Theatre, one-time home of Ziegfeld's legendary Follies. The Disney Corporation purchased and restored this venerable theatre, opened a large retail shop next door, and planned an ultra-modern Disney hotel just up the block. So what if Lion King's score was forgettable and the whole production little more than a $12,000,000 puppet show? It was the biggest hit of the 1990s. No one cared who was in the cast – the show was its own star. While some still pretend that Rent was revolutionary, it was Lion King that had a revolutionary (albeit disquieting) impact on Broadway.

"I think one of the most interesting things about our approach to this musical (ie - The Lion King) is that none of the composers are Broadway theater people, so we are drawing upon our varied past experiences. We are not thinking in terms of 'this is how a musical is done.' We are thinking in terms of how we want to do it."
- co-composer Mark Mancina, as quoted in Disney on Broadway, p. 65.

People who had never been interested in the theatre lined up for The Lion King, and even a price hike to $80 a seat didn't prevent the show from selling out for a year in advance. The Tony Awards kow-towed to the new regime, giving The Lion King the Best Musical Tony (despite the fact that Best Score and Best Book went to Ragtime). The all-American Corporate musical was triumphant and hit-hungry Broadway was in no mood to argue. London soon had an identical production, and The Lion King became the most desired ticket on both Broadway and the West End until well into the next decade.

The Corporate Musical is built, produced and managed by multi-functional entertainment corporations like Disney or the now-defunct Canadian corporation Livent. These shows may begin as the idea of a composer or writer, but most of each project's development is corporate sponsored. Instead of the distinctive stamp of creative individuals, corporate musicals have the anonymous efficiency of a department store. It all looks quite impressive, flows with ease, provides pop ballads and may even make you smile on occasion (which is more than most British mega-musicals ever did). It can also be reproduced for foreign or touring productions with matching sets and casts – no need for high-priced stars. What's missing is the joyous vitality that a corporate consciousness cannot provide.

In such an environment, experiment was almost impossible – even when a show masqueraded as something new. For more . . .

Next: 1990s Part II