Preview
Identifier
Revue Program_Page_33
Creation Date
4-23-2021
Disciplines
Arts and Humanities | Theatre and Performance Studies
Description
DRAMATURGY - “HUMAN AGAIN”
“Human Again” is from the 1994 Broadway musical Beauty and the Beast. The music is by composer Alan Menken and lyricists Howard Ashman and Tim Rice (who stepped in after the death of Ashman) and the book was written by Linda Woolverton. The song appears in Act II of the show, when the servants of the castle are talking of how excited they are at the prospect of being human again due to the burgeoning relationship between Belle and the Beast. While the upbeat waltz had originally been written for the animated film, it was cut due to time constraints. After being added to the stage adaptation of the film, it became increasingly popular until it was finally added to the 2002 remastered edition of the movie. All eight of the original songs from the film were added to the show, and six more were written to add depth to the characters. “Human Again” is the only song to have the influence of both Ashman and Rice, having been written by Ashman originally and revised after his death by Rice to make it better fit the musical. It was included in the 2017 live action film of Beauty and the Beast.
The Broadway musical Beauty and the Beast had a great impact on musical history; it was one of the first musicals on Broadway to be corporate-created, leading to much lash back from theatre critics. However, it’s popularity with the public made it one of the longest running musicals on Broadway, and it forever changed the idea of what a Broadway musical had to be. It was the first truly family-friendly musical, bringing about an age of musicals more suited to children and teenagers--such as Matilda and Aladdin--as well as making musicals geared towards young women--such as Wicked, Hairspray, and Legally Blonde--more popular. The overall success of the show led many other corporations to make stage adaptations of films, (The Lion King, Catch Me if You Can and many more) changing the way that theatre had been produced up to this time and making way for a larger crowd of Broadway fanatics.
Publisher
Arkansas State University
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.
Theatre Program
Keywords
musical, compliation, retrospective, medley
