CMU School of Drama


Saturday, April 07, 2012

PLAYBILL PICKS: From Jafar to Scar to Gaston, A Rogues' Gallery of Disney Stage Villains

Playbill.com: With the Broadway arrival of the new Disney musical Newsies — a show with a surprising history-inspired antagonist — we take a look at the most notorious baddies from Disney's musical stage adaptations. Who's your favorite in the Hall of Shame?

2 comments:

beccathestoll said...

A few things about this article surprised me. The first was that there was no mention of Hades from Hercules, nor of the disney musica "Villains Tonight!" which plays on board one of disney's cruise lines and chronicles the evil god's story. The musical was written by Playbill favorites Hunter Bell and Jeff Bowen ([title of show], Now. Here. This) and would have been valuable to throw in. Secondly, Sharpay Evans? Really? Considering that this little slideshow was inspired by the opening of "Newsies" on broadway, which boasts real-life villain Joseph Pulitzer, it's a bit sad that the one villain here who dijdn't start out animated is someone as...lame as a High school musical character, oh well, still a fun list, which also sort of shows how formulaic the Disney villain is (count how many get the act 1 closing number, wreak havoc by harming/killing the protagonist's parent, and come back in act 2 for a comedic face off or pastiche number...)

Timothy Sutter said...

I agree with everything that was said in the previous comment. I am completely shocked by the fact that Sharpay Evans is on this list. And while I know this article compares the villains that appeared on the Broadway stage, there is an interesting concept behind this article. There is often a dispute as to who is the most feared and reviled Disney Villian and how they stack up. It would be interesting to see how people rate these villans if they only say a summary of what they did without specifics of names and places. This article gives the reader a overview of the villans and thier action, but in the end never decides which one is most hated. And if this were to be done, should it just include the Broadway villans? I argue that all Disney villains should be included (like Hades as stated above). If this were to be done, we would have a answer once and for all to the question. However, Maleficent is clearly a top runner.