Alan Menken teases Tangled musical, wants to bring Enchanted to the stage

With eight Oscars to his name (and a box office blockbuster new Little Mermaid film about to be released), it’s fair to say that Alan Menken has a lot of plates spinning.

But that doesn’t mean we aren’t itching for more! The Beauty and the Beast and Hercules composer has a fair few bits and bobs cooking, as he revealed in a new interview.

Chatting exclusively to WhatsOnStage, Menken reflected on how his various films and their various places on stage, rattling through his various titles: “Hercules has been brought to the stage, both in New York and New Jersey. Hunchback is running all over around the world. Pocahontas would be difficult.”

But there were a couple of films that Menken was dying to make happen on a stage: “Enchanted I would love to see on the stage. The trick would be to get that animation into live action thing happening.”

For the uninitiated, Enchanted is a 2007 live-action-animation-hybrid flick about a two-dimensional Disney princess who is unwittingly transported to the real world. It went on to receive three Best Original Song nominations at the Oscars, co-penned by Menken and Wicked‘s Stephen Schwartz. The pair collaborated on the sequel, Disenchanted, which was released last year.

But more excitingly, it sounds as though a fully-staged Tangled musical is on its way. The 2010 animated piece is inspired by the Rapunzel tale and includes the award-nominated tune “I See The Light”.

According to Menken, “we’re already talking about it for the stage”, clarifying that, currently, “there’s a version that’s done on the Disney cruise line”. Reading between the lines, it sounds as though this new version would be different to that one-hour nautical version.

As for the status of the much-rumoured new Little Shop of Horrors film, Menken had little to add, other than acknowledging that that “may” still happen.