The Kail Renaissance

Right, so was anybody else thinking of Disney princesses when they saw Sandy in her leather cat suit last night? Anybody? Anybody? Ok, well let me explain. My crazy connection begins about 30 years ago and with one of my favorite show business stories. There is a time period in animation history that is referred to as “The Disney Renaissance.” To the uninitiated, the Disney Renaissance begins with The Little Mermaid and technically ends around Mulan. So basically your entire childhood, right? Well the fun fact is that those movies we loved when we were kids were very close to not existing at all. Disney animation went through a serious slump in the 70s and 80s culminating in the much maligned, The Black Cauldron and Disney’s failed attempt to be “edgy.” The reason for this slump was mostly because Walt died without really training anybody to be his successor, his nine old men actually got old, and more corporate minded individuals took over the company. The slump even got bad enough that they were kicked out of their own building. After The Black Cauldron, however, a group of artists took over, which the fantastic documentary Waking Sleeping Beauty refers to as a “perfect storm” of talent and creativity. I highly recommend you watch that documentary for all the details, but as these artists came of age, they created those classics we now call the Disney Renaissance and also turned around the studio.

So while I have the utmost respect for those artists, I left out something key out of that synopsis, which is actually, in my opinion, the most important element of the Disney Renaissance. That element consists of two men named Howard Ashman and Alan Menken. Ashman and Menken were Broadway imports having gained famed through the show Little Shop of Horrors. They were the ones who wrote the music for Little Mermaid, Beauty and the Beast, and half of Aladdin. Sadly, Ashman died before Aladdin could be finished, but Menken stayed on to compose a large chunk of all Disney musicals. By taking these rather dull animated films that were coming out of Disney in the 80s and applying Broadway musical principals to them, Ashman and Menken totally changed the face of animated film and children’s entertainment. They also started a tradition that was carried out by Bobby Lopez (Book of Mormon) and Kristen Anderson-Lopez in Frozen and will be carried out Lin-Manuel Miranda (Hamilton, In the Heights) (GO WES!) in Moana. Now, if I’m being very optimistic, something similar, that before seemed exclusive to the animated realm, happened last night.

So Grease: Live is still less than 24 hours old (if you don’t count the 100s of hours of rehearsal) so comparing its success to the Disney Renaissance is risky to say the least, but the elements are all there. You see, Grease: Live was directed by Tommy Kail (GO WES AGAIN!) who is best known for (wait for it)(that was shameless) directing Hamilton and In the Heights. He is one of the foremost Broadway talents and he was the one responsible for all those incredible set changes, crazy camera moves, and the overall ambitious concept of Grease: Live. Now while plenty of the appeal of Grease: Live was the awesome camera work and Kail’s ability to adapt to TV, no small part of the positive reaction the show is getting is because Kail has Broadway mastery under his belt. He knows how to put on a live show. My favorite example of this during the show was the costume changes, which the show even took the time to point out was conceived by a Broadway master costumer, William Long. Kail included Broadway all over this show and it was more entertaining because of it (my other favorite heartwarming example was one Lin Manuel Miranda pointed out on Twitter, which is that he had the ensemble take bows). In the end, it was a true fusion piece created by someone with extensive knowledge of how to entertain.

I have only seen the show once and I’m sure there are far more detailed analysis and reviews out there, but I just thought it was worth pointing out that there is historical precedence for Kail’s success. It is also an incredible example of the power of keeping an open mind and searching outside your own field to create something fresh. Disney did it in the 80s. Fox did it last night. It is also not unlike Kail’s own Hamilton, which takes hip hop and Broadway and combines them like never before. These successes are worth highlighting as we get more and more frustrated with an old-fashioned and archaic view of things, especially in Hollywood. By respecting anything that moves us and entertains us and taking the time to learn from it, we create better art and tell better stories. We should bring in outside artists from different fields as we work and honor their abilities. It is what I hope to do in this blog and what I hope more artists like Kail are doing around the world.