It was produced by , the company's first musical to premiere outside the U. It ran for three years, becoming one of Berlin's longest-running musicals. The English-language musical The Hunchback of Notre Dame had its debut at in , on October 28, 2014 and ran until December 7, 2014. Subsequently, the show went on to open on March 4, 2015 at the in. The show closed on April 5, 2015, after it was announced that it would not move to. In April 2017 a new German production of the musical opened at the in Berlin. In February 2018 the musical moved to the Stage Apollo Theater in. Background 1996-1999 In 1996, Walt Disney Animation Studios created an animated film adaption of Victor Hugo's. It received generally positive reviews and did reasonably well at the box office. Disney on Broadway, the stage play arm of the Disney Corporation, had staged successful versions of Beauty and the Beast in 1994 and The Lion King in 1997. Disney wanted to move The Lion King to Berlin. Der Glöckner von Notre Dame 1999-2002 For a long time, Berlin was in talks to stage The Lion King, but after those negotiations fell through, Disney offered this property instead. This project, announced by Stella Entertainment on March 18, 1998, saw the stage musical-producing market leader of Germany depart from its tradition of only importing shows which had proven to be successful on Broadway. Originally rehearsed in English, then retaught in German, the musical opened on June 5, 1999, for the opening of a theater named Berlin now Theater am Potsdamer Platz. After a successful run - where 1. Wie aus stein: is sung by Quasimodo towards the end of the show, exemplifying the darker Gothic tone of the musical. The song pits him against the three gargoyles, who are figments of his imagination created due to loneliness. As they try to encourage him to stay strong, despite Esmeralda loving Phoebus, Quasimodo fights back, arguing that they don't understand what he is going through because they are made of stone. He concludes, wishing that he too were made of stone so he wouldn't be able to feel the pain anymore. Directed by Lapine, the German translation was by , choreography by , set design by Heidi Ettinger, costume design by , lighting by , sound by Tony Meola and projections by Jerome Sirlin. The production cost 45 million marks to produce, much of which was subsidised by state funds. The production featured forty-two actors from six different nations. Nine new songs were written for this version. This was Disney's first musical to premiere outside the US, and it became one of Berlin's longest-running musicals to date. As with and , Der Glöckner Von Notre Dame opened three years after the release of the movie on which it is based. Intermediate period 2002-2013 Der Glöckner von Notre Dame was an isolated show, i. The musical was not staged again in this format for many years, however adaptations of the 1996 film The Hunchback of Notre Dame could be seen in various productions around Disney theme parks and cruises. On January 9, 2013, it was announced that the musical would finally be produced for a performance with a new book by and new songs by Menken and Schwartz, who did the songs for the movie and the original musical. According to The King's Academy, Walt Disney Productions personally selected them to adapt and premiere the work , and received a license to stage the English version, noting that Disney was workshopping this musical for a possible run on Broadway. Their director, David Snyder, helped Disney cast talent for the new show. This version did not include all the songs from Der Glöckner von Notre Dame, and excludes the deaths of Esmeralda and Frollo. While being an amateur production, it is notable as the first English staging of the musical, rather than a translation of the film. At the D23 expo, which took place in August 9-11, 2013, performed the first official English version of a new written for the stage musical version, Made of Stone. The Hunchback of Notre Dame 2014-present The Hunchback of Notre Dame had a in February 2014, and its North American premiere at on October 28, 2014 and ran through December 7, 2014, directed by. The production featured a 32-voice chorus, appearing onstage during the entire show. The La Jolla Playhouse production transferred to the from March 4 through April 5, 2015 , after which it was announced the show would not move to Broadway. The structure of the show was finalised and turned into a licensable work. In December of 2017 the show finally got its New York debut with its NY Regional Premiere at the White Plains Performing Arts Center and opened to outstanding reviews. An adaption of the musical, debuted in 2016 at the Music Circus in , embraced the novel's assertion that Quasimodo had become deaf after constantly ringing bells all his life by incorporating sign language into the show. Deaf actor John McGinty was cast as Quasimodo, with a surrogate singer one of the Notre Dame saints, played by Jim Hogan singing Quasimodo's songs while McGinty signed. An unprecedented production featured an intimate rotating cast of 18 with no additional choir , and reduced orchestrations with the cast playing their own instruments. The production was directed by Nicholas Wainwright at in December 2017; making its premiere in. I The production's first Canadian performance was Theatre Sarnia's 2017 production, opening the company's 91st season. The production was directed by and performed at the Imperial Theatre. It featured a relatively small cast of 19 with a choir approximately double its size. The show featured Brent Wilkinson as Dom Claude Frollo, Olivia Gogas as Esmeralda, and Adam Hobbs as Quasimodo. The story begins as a group of gypsies sneak illegally into Paris, but are ambushed by Judge Claude Frollo, the Minister of Justice of Paris, and his soldiers. A gypsy woman in the group attempts to flee with her deformed baby, but Frollo chases and kills her outside Notre Dame. He tries to kill the baby as well, but the cathedral's archdeacon intervenes and accuses Frollo of murdering an innocent woman. To atone for his sin, Frollo reluctantly agrees to raise the deformed child in Notre Dame as his son, naming him Quasimodo. Twenty years later, in 1502, Quasimodo develops into a kind yet isolated young man who dreams of seeing life outside the bell tower. A trio of living stone gargoyles, Charles, Antoine and Loni, serve as Quasimodo's only company and friends. Their attention is taken by a newcomer, a young gypsy dancer named Esmeralda. He flirts with a young girl but is suddenly interrupted by a fleeing gypsy accused of theft. The gypsy pleads innocence, but Frollo arrives and orders his soldiers to arrest the gypsy. Frollo tells Phoebus that the city has become overrun by gypsies and that he plans to find the Court of Miracles and eliminate them all. Frollo refuses to help Quasimodo, but Esmeralda intervenes, frees the hunchback, and uses a to disappear. Frollo confronts Quasimodo and sends him back inside the cathedral. Phoebus refuses to arrest her for alleged witchcraft inside Notre Dame and has her confined to the cathedral. Meanwhile, Frollo orders Phoebus to post a guard at every door to ensure that Esmeralda does not escape. Quasimodo helps her escape Notre Dame out of gratitude for defending him. Esmeralda entrusts Quasimodo with a pendant containing a map to the Court of Miracles. After discovering that Esmeralda escaped, Frollo instigates a citywide manhunt for her, which involves setting fire to countless houses in his way. Phoebus is appalled by Frollo's evil reputation and defies him. Frollo sentences him to death. Phoebus is briefly struck by an arrow and falls into a river but Esmeralda rescues him. Esmeralda tells Phoebus to seek refuge at Notre Dame while she returns to the Court of Miracles. The Archdeacon brings Phoebus to the bell tower and Phoebus, knowing Quasimodo to be a friend of Esmeralda's, asks Quasimodo to hide him. Frollo returns to Notre Dame later that night and discovers that Quasimodo helped Esmeralda escape. He bluffs to Quasimodo, saying that he knows about the Court of Miracles and that he intends to attack at dawn. After Frollo leaves, Phoebus comes out of hiding and asks Quasimodo to help him find the Court of Miracles and warn Esmeralda. Using Esmeralda's amulet as their guide, Quasimodo and Phoebus find the Court of Miracles to warn the gypsies. However, Frollo follows them and captures the gypsies present. Esmeralda rejects Frollo's advances exchange for becoming his mistress. Frollo prepares to burn Esmeralda at the stake, but Quasimodo rescues her and brings her to the cathedral. Phoebus then frees himself and the gypsies and rallies the citizens of Paris against Frollo and his men, who attempt to break into the cathedral. Quasimodo calls upon the saints and the gargoyles before pouring molten lead onto the streets to ensure no one enters, but Frollo himself successfully breaks in. In the cathedral, Esmeralda thanks Quasimodo for being a good friend and dies from smoke inhalation. Frollo arrives and, after asking Quasimodo if she is dead, tells the hunchback that they are finally free of her poison. Encouraged by Antoine, Quasimodo throws Frollo to his death in the molten lead. The gargoyles comfort Quasimodo and tell him the world is full of good as well as evil. The citizens watch as Quasimodo carries Esmeralda's body through the square with Phoebus by his side. The Hunchback of Notre Dame This is a summary of the show as currently licensed by MTI i. Act One On the morning of January 6th, 1482, the day of the Feast of Fools, a chorus of congregants gather for a sermon by Claude Frollo, archdeacon of Notre Dame. Years prior, orphaned brothers Jehan and Claude Frollo were taken in at Notre Dame. After Jehan is caught with a gypsy woman named Florika in his room, he is expelled from Notre Dame, leaving with Florika and not being heard again in years. Frollo eventually becomes the archdeacon of Notre Dame; one day, he receives a letter from Jehan. The two meet in a hidden location; when Frollo arrives, he finds Jehan dying from the pox. Jehan explains that Florika had died three months ago from the same ailment and that his baby boy needs to be taken care of. He names the baby Quasimodo meaning half-formed and raises him in Notre Dame. While he daydreams about going to the Feast of Fools, speaking to the various statues of Notre Dame, Frollo arrives at the bell tower and asks him who he is speaking to. When Quasimodo answers that he has been speaking to his friends, Frollo reminds him that the stone statues cannot talk. Meanwhile, Captain Phoebus, new Captain of Notre Dame's Cathedral Guard, arrives at the city and flirts with some women, having spent four years on a military campaign. In the middle of the celebration, he is humiliated by the crowd after a citizen starts a riot. Frollo finally intervenes and stops the riot, and then asks Quasimodo if he is now aware that he was right about how cruel and wicked the world is. Esmeralda follows Quasimodo inside Notre Dame, but Frollo finds her, telling her that gypsies are not allowed in the church and that Quasimodo is his responsibility. Esmeralda asks if he has any charity, to which Frollo, after some thought, responds that he may be able to save her. Phoebus finds Esmeralda; they argue and fight, Phoebus telling her not to cause more trouble and not to fight battles that cannot be won, which she retorts by saying that she cannot help it. Esmeralda heads up to the bell tower, finding Quasimodo there. He offers her shelter at the cathedral so that he may save her soul, but she rejects his offer, saying that she sees the way Frollo looks at her. This greatly angers Frollo, who orders Phoebus to escort her from Notre Dame and to arrest her if she ever sets foot in it again. Frollo lectures Quasimodo, telling him that she is a dangerous person sent from Hell and warning him not to heed any lustful feelings he feels towards her; yet, having developed such feelings for Esmeralda himself, Frollo starts to roam the streets every night. Frollo approaches King Louis XII, asking for special powers to stop a 'gypsy witch' to protect the people of Paris; the King tells him to do whatever he feels is necessary, but to be prudent. Having obtained permission, Frollo instigates a citywide manhunt for Esmeralda, eventually ending up at a brothel known for hiding gypsies. Esmeralda shows up to stop Frollo and a fight breaks loose; during the commotion, Frollo stabs Phoebus and frames Esmeralda for it. Esmeralda uses a magic trick to help her and Phoebus escape. Act Two Esmeralda returns to Notre Dame, asking Quasimodo to hide Phoebus, who is badly injured. She gives Quasimodo a woven band which doubles as a map to the Court of Miracles, a hiding place for gypsies in Paris, and she leaves. Frollo returns to Notre Dame later that night and asks Quasimodo about Esmeralda's whereabouts, to which Quasimodo responds that he doesn't. Frollo appears to believe him, before a guard comes up to tell Frollo that they know where Esmeralda is. Frollo tells Quasimodo that they will now be successful in capturing her and leaves. The two disclose that Frollo will attack at dawn, causing the gypsies to pack up and prepare to relocate. When Phoebus asks Esmeralda to go with her, they embrace and acknowledge their love for each other. Frollo interrupts and thanks Quasimodo for helping him find the Court of Miracles, having followed him, and arrests the gypsies present as well as Phoebus - only Clopin manages to escape. Frollo then tells the guards to lock Quasimodo away in the bell tower and ensure he cannot escape. Frollo visits Esmeralda at her prison cell and tells her that he can save her if she accepts being with him. When Esmeralda refuses, he threatens Phoebus' life as well. He halts when Esmeralda cries out in protest, calling him a demon. Frollo thinks that allowing her to have a final conversation with Phoebus will make her rethink his offer. Esmeralda tells Phoebus that the only way to save both of their lives is for her to give herself up to Frollo. Phoebus pleads for her to do it so that she may save herself, which Esmeralda refuses. At dawn, outside the cathedral, Esmeralda is tied to a pyre as Frollo reads off her crimes - entering Paris illegally, stabbing a soldier of the church, and witchcraft. He declares her sentence is death before offering her one last chance to save herself; Esmeralda answers by spitting in his face. Angered, he orders her pyre to be lit. Frollo orders the Cathedral Guard to retake the church by force if necessary. Clopin frees Phoebus; the two rally the people of Paris to fight against the guards, but the guards are still able to break in. Frollo comes in and asks Quasimodo if she is dead, which he broken-heartedly confirms. Relieved, Frollo tells Quasimodo that they are finally free of her poison. Spurred on by the gargoyles, the ghosts of Jehan and Florika, and his own anger, Quasimodo throws Frollo to his death. Phoebus arrives and discovers that Esmeralda has perished; he tries to carry her away but is unable to due to his injuries. Quasimodo then begins to carry Esmeralda's body away. At this point, the chorus paint their faces and twist themselves, revealing that even the figures Quasimodo admired were themselves 'deformed' and flawed too. The actor playing Quasimodo tells the audience that years later, two skeletons were discovered in the crypts of Notre Dame - one with a crooked spinal column and the other, in the former's arms, with a woven band Esmeralda's around its neck - and that when it was attempted to detach the two the former crumbled to dust. There was a feeling that the audience would be depressed if Esmeralda dies. I feel that a European audience would see this as a very romantic ending... People will cry, but they'll be moved. The set for the production utilized many large hydraulically controlled boxes that can be placed at any height, onto which projections were used in every scene for scenery and effects. The finale of act one shows Phoebus' plummet from a bridge over the after being shot by an arrow. We don't offer a solution, but we go to this place that you or others may call dark, that I would call life. The gargoyles, Victor, Hugo, and Laverne Charles, Antoine, and Loni in the Berlin production , who are the comic reliefs in the 1996 movie, are cut. He relies on a form of sign language that he has invented, and while he is unable to articulate, the statues of Notre Dame serve as figments of his imagination, which provide insight into his thoughts and attitudes as a. After , who played the role of Quasimodo in this version, read the book and discovered that Quasimodo is actually deaf from bell-ringing, he incorporated this aspect into his character, including a sign language-based form of communication. He had to selectively choose the moments to forgo the ailment in order to sing, such as moments when Quasimodo is alone; from his perspective he does not see his deformities. Michael Arden said of his part that he would retire from the role in future incarnations of the show. The ending was proposed by director Scott Schwartz, who turned to the original source material for inspiration; it was inserted during tech rehearsals for the Papermill staging. According to Thomas W. Douglas, musical director of a 2017 adaption at MTW, the musical may leave the audience feeling thoughtful and pensive, rather than compelling them to stand up and cheer, due to the story's moral ambiguity and complexity. The theme of the play, according to Kyoto Quasimodo actor Tanaka Akitaka, is of how to behave when in contact with others different from ourselves. Alan Menken and Stephen Schwartz felt that having a live choir on stage was integral in achieving the full-bodied sound they had crafted for the film; in addition James Lapine gave them his blessing in tinkering with his book for the new production. The aquamarine stage curtain, Gothic tracery already encoded within it, rises to reveal set designer Heidi Ettinger's ever-shifting array of cubes that join with Jerome Sirlin's projections to conjure the medieval world of the Parisian belltower inhabited by Sarich's misshapen orphan Quasimodo, his unyielding master Frollo Norbert Lamla and a trio of very chatty gargoyles. Culture Prize for Best Stage Design Won The Hunchback of Notre Dame The English version of the musical received positive reviews. The look of the show is also very good. Frederic Charlus does not appear Ian Patrick Gibb Jehan Frollo does not appear Lucas Coleman Jeremy Stolle St. English 2015 On May 15, 2015, it was announced that the Paper Mill cast would be releasing a cast recording of the show. Recorded on September 28—30 at , the album features a 25-piece orchestra, with a 32-strong choir. The recording was released by in January 2016. The cast album was released to critical and commercial acclaim. Retrieved October 3, 2015. Retrieved October 3, 2015. Berliner Zeitung in German. Berliner Zeitung in German. Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung in German. Archived from on March 2, 2014. Retrieved February 26, 2014. Retrieved 3 August 2017. The Ira Brind School of Theater Arts. The New York Times.
