How Disney Conjured Up a Strategy to Make ‘Aladdin’ a Hit Around the World

When Disney Theatrical Productions opened the musical “Aladdin” on Broadway in March 2014, expectations were humble.

The creators had been scrambling for weeks to fix the show after a modestly successful run in Toronto. Meanwhile, Disney’s European partners, accustomed to blockbuster hits like “The Lion King,” were unconvinced “Aladdin” would work abroad.

Today, the magic carpet is flying high—and wide. “Aladdin” finished 2015 as the third highest-grossing show on Broadway. And now that those skeptical partners have been won over, it is currently running in Tokyo and Hamburg, Germany, to be followed in 2016 by London and Sydney, with more, yet-to-be-announced cities on the horizon.

The show’s path spotlights what lies behind Disney’s power as a global player in live theater: a sophisticated playbook for making educated guesses.

“It would seem in retrospect that we had a grand plan, but it was trial and error,” saidDavid Schrader, Disney Theatrical Group’s executive vice president and managing director.

At stake in all that guesswork is a vast, seemingly built-in audience: “Aladdin” was the top-grossing film of 1992, according to movie-industry database imdb.com, giving today’s 30-something parents a show to tweet and Facebook about with nostalgia.

Musicals preceded by films, as opposed to wholly original products, have the benefit of familiarity.

“People are more likely to spend their money because they know the story,” said Kevin McCollum, producer of “Something Rotten!” and “Rent.”

But a show still has to earn an audience.

To that end, Disney aggressively revamped “Aladdin” for Broadway until the last possible hour. After opening to strong reviews, it began grossing more than $1 million a week consistently in 2014, according to data provided by the Broadway League, an industry group.

The next step might have been an international rollout of Disney-produced “Aladdins” in cities where the company has its own production and marketing teams.

Instead, the surprise Broadway success quelled some doubts among longtime global partners who chose to license the show.

In such deals, a local production company bears the cost of presenting and marketing a show, often at a theater it owns, while paying a royalty to Disney as a percentage of revenue. Disney incurs less risk, with a chance to test the show’s broader international potential.

“The only way you know that is by doing it,” said Thomas Schumacher, a producer and president of Disney Theatrical Group.

The process of reproducing a show abroad was largely pioneered by producer Cameron Mackintosh with mega-hits like “Cats” and “Les Misérables.”

His philosophy is making productions speak to a given culture “so they feel it is their show,” Mr. Mackintosh said. “If it is just the latest hit and a glossy copy, it doesn’t get into the heart of a country in the same way.”

In recreating “Aladdin,” Disney focused on the humor and casting of the genie, the show’s narrator who has to connect culturally with the audience.

In New York, the show’s genie, James Monroe Iglehart, delivers a mix of gospel-choir leader and jazz showman. He enters one scene praising an elaborate palace room by giving it “two snaps,” an approval gesture that originated on the 1990s-era sketch-comedy TV show “In Living Color.”

In Tokyo, the Japanese genie tweaks the compliment: “What a magnificent room! Five stars, without a doubt!”

Such adjustments were a collaborative effort between Disney and the Shiki Theatre Company, which owns eight venues. The two companies have built a rapport though working on five shows together, including “Beauty and the Beast.”

“If they can make it work, then it is durable and replicable,” said Mr. Schrader.

To help ensure success, Disney sends much of the Broadway backstage team abroad to recreate sets, costumes and makeup. Associate directors cast local actors and teach them scenes.

One challenge in rewriting the show for Japan, which opened in May, came in the father-daughter confrontation when Princess Jasmine seeks freedom from the royal palace.

“There was a difference of opinion among our Japanese partners in how far she could go,” said Mr. Schumacher, who at one point asked a young female translator if she would speak to her father in the proposed way. “It was about making it feel culturally true.”

For the German production, which opened in December, Disney partnered with Stage Entertainment, the Dutch live-theater company that presents numerous musicals in Hamburg, a European theater hub.

There, the genie, played by an actor of German-Italian descent, enters the same palace room, saying: “I usually hold back, but I’m going to give this a big fat Facebook ‘Like.’ ”

Another German adjustment? A newly named character Kassar, since nothing in German rhymes with the original Kassim.

“You have to be present on every lyric, every line,” said Mr. Schumacher, who in 2016 turns to Disney’s own productions in London and Sydney, where the company has successfully transferred “The Lion King.”

Why not just set out to write and produce an international hit from the start?

“You can’t,” said Mr. Mackintosh. “Anyone who does that deserves a flop.”

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