From Page to Stage. The history of HUNCHBACK.
On May 18, 2023, Legacy Theater Company presents Disney’s The Hunchback of Notre Dame: The Musical. Over the next few days, we thought it would be fun to go through the history of this epic story, how it came to the stage, and what lessons we can look for and learn as we watch the story unfold on the stage.
Notre Dame Cathedral. Paris, France
The path of the stage adaptation of The Hunchback of Notre Dame can be traced back many centuries to 1163 – the year in which construction began on Notre Dame Cathedral. To this day, the cathedral stands situated in the center of Paris as one of the largest church buildings in the world and an architectural marvel.
Author of The Hunchback of Notre Dame, Victor Hugo.
Victor Hugo’s Notre-Dame de Paris
In 1829, a young author named Victor Hugo began writing an ode to Notre Dame, constructed centuries earlier. Hugo had a deep appreciation for Gothic architecture, the style that flourished in France between the 12th and 16th centuries and has characteristics such as flying buttresses, vaulted ceilings, gargoyles, and a grand scale. By the early 19th century, a number of Gothic buildings throughout Paris were neglected or torn down and replaced with new buildings. For Hugo, this mistreatment combined with a fascination with forgotten architecture culminated in the writing of Notre-Dame de Paris.
Hugo’s project can be seen as a success in many ways. Published in 1831, the main character of the novel is neither Quasimodo nor Esmeralda nor Frollo, but rather Notre Dame itself. The novel thus reinvigorated an interest in Gothic architecture, and a massive restoration project of the cathedral began a few years later.
The novel went on to be regarded as one of the great works of Western literature; in 1833, it was published in English under the title The Hunchback of Notre Dame – a title that Hugo himself disliked because it put the focus too much on Quasimodo and his physical differences as opposed to the cathedral.
Disney’s Animated The Hunchback of Notre Dame
Still photo from Disney’s The Hunchback of Notre Dame
Hugo’s novel has inspired numerous adaptations from ballets to operas, television mini-series to musicals, orchestrations to movies. But, perhaps the most well-known of these adaptations is Disney’s 1996 animated
film which began production in 1993, when Walt Disney Feature Animation development executive David Stainton was looking for material to adapt into an animated musical.
The team at Disney Animation felt that it was always important to tackle a new challenge with each film; inspired by the opportunity to adapt a literary masterpiece that is sophisticated and serious in tone, Disney quickly put the film into production with directors Gary Trousdale and Kirk Wise, who had previously directed Beauty and the Beast together.
Joining them would be composer Alan Menken, writing music for his sixth Disney animated film, and lyricist Stephen Schwartz who had previously collaborated with Disney and Menken on Pocahontas. After Pocahontas, Schwartz and Menken were offered a choice of a few ideas for their next project and were immediately attracted to The Hunchback of Notre Dame. Schwartz explains, “I liked the underlying themes (the idea of social outcasts and the worth of people being different than what society sees on the surface) and the struggle of Quasimodo to break free of the psychological dominance of Frollo.”
Der Glöckner von Notre Dame
Songwriters Alan Menken and Stephen Schwartz, while pleased with the film, still felt that they never completed their work on it. They had wished the film could have been darker, more closely mirroring the novel, but the demands of an animated family movie at the time necessitated a happy ending. Menken had witnessed Disney’s successes with the stage adaptations of Beauty and the Beast (for which he composed the music) and The Lion King. Shortly after completing the film, he went to Disney Theatrical Productions president Thomas Schumacher and proposed revisiting The Hunchback of Notre Dame.
Der Glöckner von Notre Dame Musical
Disney was focusing on preparing Elton John and Time Rice’s Aida for Broadway, as well as managing the still-running Beauty and the Beast and The Lion King. So, Schumacher looked to the growing theatrical market in Europe, partnering with Stella Entertainment to produce The Hunchback of Notre Dame in their Musical Theatre Berlin at Potsdamer Platz under the German title, Der Glöckner von Notre Dame.
Menken and Schwartz fleshed out their film score, composing nine new songs. James Lapine, already notable for his work with Stephen Sondheim on Sunday in the Park with George and Into the Woods, was brought on board to write the book and direct the musical. Lapine’s book and Schwartz’s lyrics were written in English and then translated into German by Michael Kunze, a prominent German lyricist and librettist.
Der Glöckner von Notre Dame represented a return to the novel in many ways. The musical adopted a darker tone and restored many of Hugo’s plot elements. Notably, Esmeralda dies at the end of the show and Quasimodo pushes Frollo to his death. Also, elements of Frollo’s ties to the Church were reinstated and the film’s gargoyles were made less comedic and established as figments of Quasimodo’s imagination rather than magical creatures.
The production featured a massive scale and lavish design with a cast of 42 performers, and Quasimodo had a prosthetic face mask to represent his physical differences. Heidi Ettinger’s set was a technical marvel that included 11 automated hydraulically-powered cubes that could rise up out of the stage into myriad configurations, utilizing projections by Jerome Serlin to set the scene and bring to life the architecture that Hugo wrote so adoringly about.
Der Glöckner von Notre Dame opened on June 5, 1999, with choreography by Lar Lubovitch, costumes by Sue Blane, lighting by Rick Fisher, and sound by Tony Meola, and ran successfully for three years. The new score was also able to live on through a cast recording released in German. Even still, Menken and Schwartz did not feel that they had entirely succeeded in creating their best adaptation of Hugo’s novel.
A New Stage Production
By the late 2000s, Disney embarked on a new model for developing shows in which they were no longer developed solely for Broadway or the West End, but could go directly into the company’s expanding licensing catalog. Under this model, Menken, Schwartz, and Schumacher wanted to take one more shot at crafting a stage adaptation of The Hunchback of Notre Dame, hoping once again to bring it even closer to the novel.
Director Scott Schwartz pitched a concept for the show that inspired the writers: The musical would be presented in a story theater format. This new adaptation would return much more closely to the Hugo novel, with a brand-new prologue elucidating Frollo’s backstory and would strip away the spectacle of the Berlin production, employing a unit set of the cathedral interior and focusing on the story and music. The cast was pared down to just 17 players, augmented by a large onstage choir.
Peter Parnell was brought on board to write a new libretto that hews closer to the novel than any of
the Disney adaptations that came before. The new prologue and ending are both rooted in Hugo’s writing, as are many of the changes made to the characters and story throughout. However, the history of adaptations is still visible; for example, the comedic gargoyles were invented for the animated movie, refined for the German production, and found their way into the latest adaptation as figments of Quasimodo’s imagination embodied by the congregation.
Michael Arden as Quasimodo in La Jolla Playhouse production of “Hunchback”.
The Hunchback of Notre Dame premiered with a co-production between California’s La Jolla Playhouse, and New Jersey’s Paper Mill Playhouse in the 2014-15 season; this production was directed by Scott Schwartz, with choreography by Chase Brock, music supervision and arrangements by Michael Kosarin, orchestrations by Danny Troob, scenery by Alexander Dodge, costumes by Alejo Vietti, lighting by Howell Binkley, and sound by Gareth Owen. It went on to receive first class commercial replica productions in Japan and Germany, and the show has since been reimagined by a number of professional and amateur theaters, including a production directed by Glenn Casale that played at Sacramento Music Circus and La Mirada Theatre for the Performing Arts featuring John McGinty, a deaf actor, as Quasimodo.
The Hunchback of Notre Dame has never appeared on Broadway; it was never meant to. The writers decided to bring The Hunchback to community and regional theater instead of to Broadway; and something about that, makes us love it even more!
Hunchback at Legacy Theater
And now, Legacy Theater Company continues the legacy of Victor Hugo’s work this May as we present The Hunchback of Notre Dame to our community. With 18 players all playing various roles, this production is an invitation to experience true beauty, deep thought, and a potentially life-changing moment.
We cannot wait for you to join us. 🔔
Written By: Erika Bain & Disney Theatricals
