Making of "The Hunchback of Notre Dame" Cast Recording : Behind the Curve Reacts 

The interesting thing about this show is that it was never on Broadway. The Actors Equity union did not want to pay for the extra performers required by the choir and Allen Manken and Steven Schwartz refused to make the choir smaller as they thought it would take away some of the power and meaning from the music. So it did a great run off Broadway and now is available for schools and other companies to do it but no Broadway production has been done.

Most of the songs from the original are in this version, but even more beautiful. This is much darker, and more true to the source material. This musical is so beautiful that the first time I listened to the whole album and got to the end of the finale I cried. Beautiful show all around. Even if you don’t watch the boot on your channel I still highly recommend you watch it on your own.

You may have seen Patrick Page, who played Frollo and sang Hellfire, as Hades in Hadestown.

Michael Arden, who plays Quasimodo here, directed the Deaf West Spring Awakening production you reacted to some time ago.

This is easily my favorite movie and musical score of all time. Alan Menken integrated so many actual prayers and chants from the Catholic Mass and there's *so much* symbolism that comes from that alone. "Hellfire" is easily the best example of this. There's a bit of chanted Latin in the beginning and sprinkled throughout the entire song - a prayer still recited at the beginning of Mass (in English now). If you know what they're chanting, the juxtaposition of the words to what's sung in English elevates the song in such a huge way. I actually said aloud "are they chanting what I think they're chanting?!" when I really listened to the Latin. Cue mad chills up and down my spine.

If you're looking for a copy of the cast performance, you'll want to look up "Hunchback at Papermill Playhouse" or "Hunchback at La Jolla Playhouse." There are multiple relatively high-quality bootlegs floating around. In terms of the movie vs. the stage production, like all Disney movie-to-stage productions they kept all the songs that were originally in the movie and then added quite a few more to expand the show. So all of the songs from the movie are in the show, but the show has SEVERAL songs that are not in the movie. From this particular featurette, the ones in the movie and in the show are "Bells of Notre Dame," "Out There," and "Hellfire." "Someday" is the end credits song in the movie that Menken/Schwartz transformed into an Esmeralda/Phoebus duet for the show.

There's a bootleg of the show on youtube you should react to that!

Many songs are from the film like Hellfire, Out There, quite a few themes and melodies. Songs like Somewhere and Made Of Stone aren’t in it. I think the broadway soundtrack basically uses the film soundtrack as a starting point and just adds more songs. From that point of view the broadway soundtrack is better, but my favourite song from the film is the opening Bells Of Notre Dame number which is used as a prologue, and comparing the film and broadway versions I definitely prefer the film one, it just feels livelier. If you wanted to watch some stuff from the film, I’d definitely recommend watching the opening (song plus visuals, the animation is extremely powerful and gives some important context to the lyrics), if you love the big, epic choir stuff then that section is incredible! I will say, if you want to watch the whole thing then you should probably know that the film has often been criticised for having massive tonal issues. Like, many scenes and themes are VERY dark, especially for Disney, which I think is great and super interesting, but then you also have really goofy comedy relief (coz it is still technically a kids film I guess) which feels really weird next to these mature ideas. The broadway show takes itself more seriously and is more ‘faithful’ to the source material, but is therefore way more depressing and also I personally prefer the exaggerated colours and visuals you can get with animation.

This has to be one of my favorite musicals of all time. It does a great job of building the already beautiful music from the Disney movie and transform it into something even better. It’s darker than the Disney movie, but it also keeps the hopefulness and light.

Definitely watch/react to the show! I was in the orchestra for my community's production of this and it has definitely been one of my new favorites; this video is just the tip of the iceberg of the gorgeous music and the story, while tragic, is beautiful.

Behind the curve: It’s a whole new - My Disney obsessed brain: world? Behind the curve: genre Great reaction! I love this musical! The whole production from the La Jolla Playhouse is up on RU-vid! I would recommend watching that as opposed to the movie or any other version. It’s one of the most gorgeous adaptations I have ever seen!

This is one of my favorite musicals of all time

The show never made it to Broadway and most of the snogs are in the show. Made of stone is my favorite song of this show. When I got this soundtrack i got chills everywhere.

A few things: 1. I’m so glad you liked this! It’s one of my absolute favorites! That being said let’s move on to 2. I agree with the other comment by Katherine Brown on this video; while both the film and stage scores have a lot in common, they had a few LARGE tone issues in the Disney film and course correction back towards the original story in the stage piece led to some nessacery music changes. 3. You are correct. Stephen Shwartz did write Wicked as well as GodSpell. But he was also the original writer of this Disney film project’s music ( along with Alan Menken) and he worked on Disney’s Pocahontas.

All of it! I’m SO SORRY that you haven’t heard Disney music your whole life. You don’t have to like Disney, but there is NO denial that Disney KNOWS music. It never made it to Broadway due to stupid budget and union contracts (they needed all 60 chorus to be on stage as union which was a high price…whatever) and there is no cast recording except bootleg on RU-vid, so check it out!!! The movie has a more nuanced approach but the Broadway version obviously has a more rapturous reverb. HIGHLY recommend anything Alan Menken. Stop worrying about Disney and just start listening to PHENOMENAL music from Alan Menken. He’s one of my favorite composers. (Also, Stephen Schwartz is a lyricist)..

Omg I didn't know this existed! I'm going to hopelessly disappear into this album, I already know it

you guys should react to 36 questions!! it’s literally a full musical in the form of a podcast!! the whole thing is on spotify for free!!

This need to go to broadway

The musical is darker than the movie and it's on youtube it did not go to Broadway

As other posters have mentioned there are bootlegs of both the La Jolla and Papermill productions here on RU-vid. I believe the cast is pretty much the same in both of those productions. Another version that is also available on RU-vid is a high school production from the King's Academy is WPB, FL. They are one of the finest college prepatory schools in the country and the talent on display is amazing!! They ovbiously had their production professionally filmed because the quality is right up with any pro-shot of a Broadway production. I highly recommend it!!

Watch the bootleg of the stage musical, it’s been on RU-vid for years.

There is a bootleg of this show on youtube! It is absolutely beautiful, and I am so upset that it never made it to Broadway.

This musical is on youtube! 2hr long musical! WATCH IT if you havent yet!

OH! Majority of the songs were from the original version. So watch the movie and then listen to the musical album.

Even though you can't react to the bootleg on the channel, you should still make a video giving your opinions after watching it, or at certain points during the show.