A musical stage version of the beloved animated film Aladdin will have its world premiere at Toronto’s Ed Mirvish Theatre, immediately prior to its Broadway engagement.

The production will debut Nov. 13 as part of the 2013-14 Mirvish subscription season, according to Thomas Schumacher, producer and president of Disney Theatrical Productions, who broke the news to the Star in an exclusive interview.

Toronto has been no stranger to Disney musicals before, including record-breaking runs of The Lion King and Beauty and the Beast, but Aladdin will be the first one to begin here.

Schumacher explained why it made perfect sense to start his next show in Toronto.

“When you look around for an ideal tryout town, there’s a set of elements you need. You have to have a proper theatre that can mount an enormous show. And I know Toronto can deliver what we need physically. The Ed Mirvish Theatre, putting aside my sentimental feelings about Ed, is a spectacular theatre, capable of doing anything we need, with wonderful technicians at our disposal,” he said.

“Then there’s the amazing Mirvish subscription base. It’s always super when the audience love theatre as much as we do.

“Great theatre, great crew, great audience. That’s what I look for.”

The original animated film Aladdin was the most successful movie of 1992, and is best remembered for Robin Williams’ outrageous shape-shifting turn as the Genie and for the lovely Alan Menken-Howard Ashman score, which featured the Oscar-winning song “A Whole New World.”

But Schumacher reveals it wasn’t the picture they intended to make.

“Howard was the driving force behind the film, but when he got sick early in the process, everything changed.” (Ashman was to die of AIDS in 1991.)

Schumacher explains that Ashman saw the film as having a lot more human characters and a lot of snappy, irreverent humour.

“The way he originally conceived of the genie was as a Cab Calloway, Fats Waller kind of figure, saying, ‘Let’s put on a show for you, kid,’ for Aladdin.

“A lot of younger people might not understand what we’re talking about, but Howard wanted the spirit driving Aladdin to be like one of the old Bob Hope and Bing Crosby ‘Road’ movies.”

Schumacher laughs. “I was in Morocco last week with the design team and we had so much fun imagining Hope and Crosby here with us, filming Road To Morocco.”

Two of the three members of that team will be very familiar to Toronto audiences. Bob Crowley designed the sets and costumes for the National Ballet of Canada hit Alice’s Adventuresin Wonderland and Natasha Katz provided the lighting. Gregg Barnes will join them to work on Aladdin.

The direction and choreography will be by the hottest stager on Broadway these days, Casey Nicholaw, who first came to attention doing the musical numbers for Spamalot, went on to bring The Drowsy Chaperone to Tony Award-winning life and is currently represented by the megahit The Book of Mormon, arriving here this April.

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“I think Casey is the Gower Champion of our time,” enthused Schumacher, evoking the man behind such classic hits as ByeBye Birdie, Hello, Dolly! and 42nd Street.

While not revealing any casting, Schumacher did hint that the romantic figures of Jasmine and Aladdin would be slightly older than they were in the animated film “because you’ve got to have two gorgeous people that everyone wants to see fall in love with each other.”

Asked what his personal three wishes for Aladdin would be, Schumacher said, “Beautiful romance, great comedy and spectacular production values. Isn’t that what everybody wants from a musical?”