BEAUTY AND THE BEAST North American Tour to Play at the Academy of Music
Beauty and the Beast, directed & choreographed by Matt West, features Alan Menken's Academy Award-winning score, songs by Alan Menken and the late Howard Ashman.
By: Chloe Rabinowitz Dec. 17, 2025
Disney's Beauty and the Beast, the first North American touring production of the musical presented by Disney in over 25 years, will begin performances in Philadelphia, PA, at the Academy of Music on February 11, 2026 for a limited engagement of 2 weeks through February 22, 2026.
Nominated for nine Tony Awards, winning for Best Costume Design, Beauty remains one of the highest-grossing Broadway shows of all time. The title's visibility and success have expanded globally with productions of the stage show and the smash Oscar-nominated 2017 live-action film, which grossed over $1B worldwide.
About Disney's Beauty and the Beast
The structure and tone of the story and score made Disney history. It was just the second time that a Disney film had been structured as a stage musical where the songs are integral to plot and characterization. This Menken/Ashman innovation is credited with the 1990's Disney animation renaissance that went on to create such film classics as Aladdin, The Lion King and Hunchback of Notre Dame and helped re-introduce the book musical form to popular culture.
Beauty and the Beast, directed & choreographed by Matt West, features Alan Menken's Academy Award-winning score, songs by Alan Menken and the late Howard Ashman (including the Academy Award-winning title song and the show-stopping "Be Our Guest"), plus songs written especially for the stage by Alan Menken and Tim Rice (including "If I Can't Love Her" and "A Change In Me"). The production features a book by Linda Woolverton, author of the original screenplay. Sets are by Stanley A. Meyer, costumes by Ann Hould-Ward (Tony Award winner for Beauty and the Beast) and lighting by Natasha Katz.
Longtime Menken collaborators Michael Kosarin and Danny Troob are music supervisor/arranger and orchestrator, respectively. New dance music arrangements are by David Chase. David Andrews Rogers is music director.
Completing the design team, John Shivers is sound designer, Darrel Maloney is projection & video designer, and David H. Lawrence is hair & make-up designer. Jim Steinmeyer is the illusion designer, as he was on the original 1994 production. Jason Trubitt is the production supervisor and Myriah Bash is the general manager.
Previous Disney-produced North American Tours of Beauty and the Beast played for almost eight years, for a combined total of 2,893 performances.
Philadelphia Awards - Live Stats
Best Musical - Top 3
1.
CATS (Shawnee Playhouse)
17% of votes
2.
INTO THE WOODS (The Milford Theater)
5.8% of votes
3.
NEWSIES (Viviana Theatre)
3.9% of votes
