Alan Menken

Alan Menken is the composer behind many of Disney's best-loved songs and a long run of Broadway musicals. His stage career stretches from a cult comedy about a bloodthirsty plant to some of Broadway's longest-running family shows.

Who Alan Menken is

Alan Menken was born in New York City in 1949. His most important early partner was the lyricist and writer Howard Ashman: together they wrote the Off-Broadway musicals God Bless You, Mr. Rosewater (1979) and Little Shop of Horrors (1982), then moved to Disney animation with The Little Mermaid and Beauty and the Beast. Ashman died in 1991, and Menken went on to write with Tim Rice, Stephen Schwartz, Jack Feldman, and, most often on stage, Glenn Slater.

Menken is a musical chameleon. Little Shop borrows early 1960s doo-wop and girl-group pop, The Little Mermaid dips into calypso, Sister Act leans on 1970s disco and soul, and Newsies is full of marches and rousing anthems. What ties it all together is a gift for melody and for the classic "I want" song, where a hero sings about the life they long for.

Alan Menken's Broadway shows

Little Shop of Horrors opened Off-Broadway in 1982 and ran about five years, but it did not reach Broadway until a 2003 revival. Menken's first Broadway opening was Beauty and the Beast in 1994, Disney's first Broadway musical, which ran for 13 years. King David, a biblical oratorio with lyrics by Tim Rice, played a brief concert staging at the New Amsterdam Theatre in 1997.

The Little Mermaid followed in 2008. Sister Act, an original score with Glenn Slater, played London first and opened on Broadway in 2011. The year 2012 brought two Menken openings: Leap of Faith, about a traveling faith healer, which closed within weeks, and Newsies, which ran more than two years. Aladdin opened at the New Amsterdam Theatre in 2014 and is still running. A Bronx Tale (2016), with lyrics by Slater, adapted Chazz Palminteri's coming-of-age story and ran into 2018. A stage version of Hercules, which premiered in Central Park in 2019, opened in London's West End in 2025.

Awards, legacy, and where to start

Menken has won eight Academy Awards, 11 Grammy Awards, and seven Golden Globes, mostly for his Disney film work. On Broadway he has won one Tony Award, Best Original Score for Newsies in 2012, shared with lyricist Jack Feldman, and has also been nominated for Beauty and the Beast, The Little Mermaid, Sister Act, and Aladdin. In 2020 he won a Daytime Emmy for the song Waiting in the Wings from the series Rapunzel's Tangled Adventure, joining the small group of artists with an EGOT (Emmy, Grammy, Oscar, and Tony).

Newcomers can start with Little Shop of Horrors, his sharpest and funniest score, either on the cast album or in Frank Oz's 1986 film. For a family outing or a first trip to Broadway, Aladdin and Beauty and the Beast show off his Disney melodies on a big stage, and Newsies is the pick for anyone who loves high-energy dancing.

Alan Menken: frequently asked questions

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