The Princess Blog

Two new Broadway musicals featured Cinderella as a leading lady this year, and neither of them lasted for even four months on the Great White Way.  The first was Bad Cinderella , adapted from Andrew Lloyd Webber's short-lived Cinderella musical on the West End. The other was the Britney Spears jukebox musical, Once Upon a One More Time , which sounded like a bad idea from its inception. Both shows suffered from poor ticket sales, backstage drama, and criticism over the long-running trend of modernizing old fairy tales . Yet, the problem is not with the character of Cinderella herself , who has been a long-standing icon of fortune, romance, and glamour, but rather with the media's obsession of correcting popular stories to fit a standardized feminist narrative. After all, the most famous Cinderella musical, Rodgers and Hammerstein's Cinderella , has enjoyed great success for many decades with numerous adaptations and revivals, one of which is allegedly still on the way . Be...

After a disappointing Super Bowl Sunday  that did not reveal the promised trailer for the live-action remake of The Little Mermaid , Disney quietly dropped the 30-second TV spot online a couple of days ago. This is a teaser rather than a trailer with even less content than I was hoping for. Half the video shows footage that has already been released at the D23 Expo , while the other half reveals two-second flashes of additional scenes from various points in the movie. They are so quick that you might miss them if you blink. The only way to get a good look at what's going on is through screenshots. One clip features our new Ariel bouncing off a phosphorescent pink cloud of translucent jellyfish. This is a fun little image that gives us a first look at the movie's visual effects in creating the fantasy underwater kingdom of Atlantica from the original film. Her playful movements are reminiscent of the showstopper "Under the Sea" number, which might be where this clip c...

After following the West End run of Andrew Lloyd Webber's Cinderella  with great anticipation, I was pleased to learn that the show is coming to Broadway  after its controversial closing in the UK . I was a little less pleased when I learned that its title would be changed to Bad Cinderella. Yes, I know "Bad Cinderella" is the headlining song from the show  and that they don't want people to confuse it with Rodgers and Hammerstein's Cinderella , but after Lloyd Webber was booed onstage for calling the production "a costly mistake" in a letter he wrote for its final curtain call, is it really a good idea to promote its revival in America with a derogatory adjective? Maybe if it didn't spark so much controversy in its British run, the title could have been interpreted as a parody along the lines of Disenchanted . At this point, it gives off the impression that Webber is making fun of the show, something that I personally don't think it deserves. H...

After a long  series of lockdowns and delays , Andrew Lloyd Webber's new Cinderella musical  finally premiered on June 25th at the Gillian Lynn Theatre in England. Being on the opposite side of the globe, I have no way of seeing this show in person, and I'm sure neither do many of you. It's time shine up your glass slippers because we're in luck! The official cast recording of Andrew Lloyd Webber's Cinderella  was released today, and both acts have been uploaded to the official YouTube channel in chronological order! The songs recount the complete story of this new fairy tale adaptation, which is the next best thing to seeing the actual show. I am pleased to say that I thoroughly enjoyed this new version of "Cinderella" and can't wait to tell you all about. There will be a few spoilers in this post, so if you would like to avoid them, you can listen to Act 1 here and Act 2 here before reading it. The story is pretty much how I interpreted it base...

The Time Princess app has been releasing an endless stream of new visual novels with no sign of slowing down. I've been impressed with the amount of well-known stories the game developers have adapted lately that aren't based on popular fairy tales. The latest one is no exception. Phantom of the Opera  is a beloved story among princess fans due to its similarities to "Beauty and the Beast"  as well as the beautifully haunting melodies of the famous Andrew Lloyd Webber musical . The innocent protagonist who performs various onstage arias in glittering costumes, best friend side character, and classic love triangle make it a prime choice for this game's traditional visual novel story dynamics. That is probably why it is one of the only stories in the game that is presented exactly as it is without any sort of modern twist such as gender-bending the characters like they did for several other adaptations . In this dress-up visual novel, players take on the role of...

It turns out I wasn't the only one who was excited to learn that the 1997 version of Rodgers and Hammerstein's Cinderella  was coming to Disney+ last week. Everyone involved in the making of this classic film from over 20 years ago got together for interviews , a live watch party on Twitter , and more. The biggest surprise of this celebration was a brand new music video  from Disney aficionado Todrick Hall  featuring the leading lady herself, Brandy Norwood . It starts out as a fun little singing session between Brandy and Todrick as they serenade each other with songs from the classic musical. Then, something magical happens as Brandy is transformed into a slightly updated version of her princess look from the 1997 film and returns to the ball with Todrick as her prince. The video comes to a "happily ever after" with socially distanced cameos from several of the other cast members in the film. Todrick Hall is no stranger to producing professional-quality Disney fan...

Covid took away many once-in-a-lifetime experiences  from millions of people worldwide. I was content being locked away in my tower binging princess shows , but the one thing I missed the most this year was musical theater . The stage is a place for princesses to shine as they show off their stunning costumes , bell-like voices , and whimsical stories . Throughout the year, I learned about many new princess musicals  that I would have loved to see if the theaters had not shut down. Streaming musicals has become more commonplace than ever, but watching a show on a screen simply cannot compare to the magic of seeing it live . While Hollywood continues to rehash old ideas , Broadway is giving us a fresh perspective on history  with shows like Hamilton  and  Six . In the same way that Hamilton sets American history to contemporary music, Six takes the wives of Henry VIII and turns them into a pop band that performs Spice Girls-inspired numbers about their tr...

When I first heard that Andrew Lloyd Webber was bringing yet another musical based on "Cinderella" into the world, I met the news with a healthy dose of skepticism . Now that there are two full songs from this upcoming show available online, I have never been more pleased to be wrong. Just a few days ago, Webber released the show-stopping number "Bad Cinderella" on both YouTube and Spotify. This song was teased in a very early preview video for the show, but hearing it in full gave deeper clarity into the context of the lyrics and who this new Cinderella is. My growing excitement for the show led me to a Twitter post  from last month in which the extraordinarily talented Carrie Hope Fletcher  performed another song from the show entitled "Far Too Late," which is a complementary opposite to "Bad Cinderella" in terms of tone. Hearing both of these songs gave me a more complete image of what to expect when the theater doors will open again to ...

This may seem like an unusual topic for my blog, but it felt appropriate after Andrew Lloyd Webber streamed The Phantom of the Opera for free last weekend followed by its sequel, Love Never Dies , this weekend as part of his The Shows Must Go On series . I had seen Phantom of the Opera twice on stage and watched this recording of Love Never Dies online when it was first released nearly a decade ago. I have strong feelings about both productions and how they demonstrate why making a sequel to a princess story is generally a bad idea. You might try to argue that Phantom is not a princess story, but Christine Daaé is just as much of a musical theater princess as Johanna is in Sweeney Todd . She is a feminine ingenue who is gifted with a beautiful singing voice and coveted for her kindness and gentility by all who are fortunate enough to know her. Phantom of the Opera is a beautiful allegory for love and obsession and the complex psychological effects of physical deformities. Love Never...

In these tough times , we could all use a smile and a song to cheer ourselves up. Hollywood and Broadway are shut down right now, but the people behind them still want to bring joy to the world. That's why the past few days have been filled with beautiful musical performances for everyone with a computer to stream online from the comfort of their own homes. Various stage shows such as the Disney Cruise Lines adaptation of the live-action Beauty and the Beast  movie  and weekly recordings of Andrew Lloyd Webber 's greatest hits that used to require an expensive ticket and carefully planned trip are now available to watch from the comfort of our own living room for free thanks to the magic of the internet and the generosity of entertainers. Many of the people who performed in these glorious productions still have the urge to entertain people from quarantine, so we were also treated to more recently recorded serenades of various Disney songs that follow the stay-at-home guid...