The prince is giving a ball, and the mouse is planning a series! The in-development limited series adaptation of Rodgers and Hammerstein's Cinderella, which was revealed in 2022, is headed to Disney+, according to The Wrap. The show will reimagine the classic story from the point of view of the fairy godparents, which ostensibly means adding characters.
No production schedule, release date, or casting has been revealed.
As previously announced, the project is being developed by Skydance Television, Concord Originals, and Jennifer Lopez (soon to be starring in the movie adaptation of Broadway's Kiss of the Spider Woman), who is executive producing under her Nuyorican Productions banner. Rachel Shukert (The Baby-Sitters Club, GLOW) is writing the adaptation, along with serving as executive producer and showrunner.
The project is the latest in a growing list of stage musicals getting serial adaptations. A Grease prequel series, titled Rise of the Pink Ladies, streamed on Paramount+ in 2023, with Broadway favorite Jackie Hoffman starring as Rydell Assistant Principal McGee. Series adaptations of Oklahoma! and A Chorus Line are also reportedly in development, though neither has yet materialized.
The series would not be the first time a Rodgers and Hammerstein musical has become a TV series. The King and I was adapted into Anna and the King, a non-musical series with its original stage and film star Yul Brynner reprising his role as the King of Siam in 1972, though it only lasted for a single season.
The musical was originally written for a 1957 live TV broadcast starring Julie Andrews, offered at the height of Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein II's meteoric success on Broadway. The historic telecast was watched by more than 107 million people—which worked out to 4.3 people per television set at the time—and Andrews received an Emmy Award nomination for her work in the title role. In the years since, the work has been produced for TV again in 1965 starring Lesley Ann Warren, Ginger Rogers, Walter Pidgeon, and Celeste Holm; and yet again in 1997 starring Brandy Norwood, Whitney Houston, Bernadette Peters, Paolo Montalbán, Whoopi Goldberg, Victor Garber, and Jason Alexander.
READ: 10 Minutes (and 60 Years) Ago: Lesley Ann Warren Looks Back on Cinderella
The work made it to the stage almost immediately after its TV premiere, playing as a holiday panto at the London Coliseum in 1958, and in more traditional adaptations in the U.S. by 1961. A dramatically revised stage version of the work, with a book by Douglas Carter Beane and incorporating songs from the Rodgers and Hammerstein catalogue, gave the property its Broadway premiere in 2013, starring Laura Osnes, Santino Fontana, Victoria Clark, Harriet Harris, Peter Bartlett, Ann Hararda, Marla Mindelle, and Greg Hildreth.
