Theatre Legends

Alan Menken

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If you write enough musicals you pretty much have a sense of where they should go, what you’ll need, and when; how to pull people on that journey.
Alan Menken
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About Alan Menken

Alan Irwin Menken is an American musical theatre and film composer and pianist. Menken is best known for his scores for films produced by Walt Disney including The Little Mermaid, Beauty and the Beast, Aladdin, Pocahontas, Little Shop of Horrors, The Hunchback of Notre Dame, Hercules, Newsies, Enchanted, and Tangled. Menken has collaborated on several occasions with lyricists including Howard Ashman, Tim Rice, Glenn Slater, Stephen Schwartz, and David Zippel.

With eight Academy Award wins, Menken is the second most prolific Oscar winner in a music category. He attended college focussing on music at New York University’s Steinhardt School and the BMI Lehman Engel Musical Theater Workshop. He achieved success with the 1982 Off-Broadway musical Little Shop of Horrors for which he earned a Drama Desk Award nomination. Little Shop was adapted into a successful motion picture in 1986, and received a Broadway run. The stage musical version of Beauty and the Beast opened on Broadway in 1994. He was named a Disney Legend in 2001. A musical version of The Little Mermaid opened on Broadway in January 2008, Sister Act the Musical in Spring 2011, Newsies in Spring 2012 (Tony Award for Best Score), and Aladdin in Spring 2014.

Videos

Working in the Theatre: Anatomy of a Song

Alan Menken's Oscar record on CBS This Morning

Making of "The Hunchback of Notre Dame" Studio Cast Recording

#Ham4Ham

Alan Menken's Creative Secrets with Playbill.com

Select Credits

  • Aladdin - Music by, New Amsterdam Theatre
  • Leap of Faith - Music by, St. James Theatre
  • Newsies The Musical - Music by, Nederlander Theatre

    2012 Best Original Score Written for the Theatre Tony Award winner
    *Alan's first Tony Award

  • Sister Act - Music by, Broadway Theatre

    5 Tony nominations

  • The Little Mermaid - Music by, Lunt-Fontanne Theatre

    2008 Best Original Score Written for the Theatre [nominee]

  • Little Shop of Horrors - Music by, August Wilson Theatre

    The musical had its world premiere Off-Off-Broadway on May 6, 1982 at the Workshop of the Players' Art (WPA) Theatre, playing there until June 6, 1982.[2] It opened Off-Broadway at the Orpheum Theatre in Manhattan's East Village on July 27, 1982.

  • Beauty and the Beast - Music by, Palace Theatre, (94 - 99), Lunt-Fontanne Theatre (99 - 07)

    9 Tony nominations