Odds & Ends: Hamilton Goes Platinum, Disney Eyes Live Action Little Mermaid & More

Here's a quick roundup of stories you may have missed today.

Hamilton Goes Platinum
As we all know by now, history has its eyes on Hamilton. Lin-Manuel Miranda’s enormous hit tuner’s latest accolade? After making it to number one on the Billboard Rap Album Chart last November and achieving gold status last month, the Grammy-winning cast album has just gone platinum, which means it’s now sold more than one million copies. Nominated for a record-breaking 16 Tony Awards, if you can get a ticket, the room where it’s happening is the Richard Rodgers Theatre. But then, you definitely knew that already.

Disney Eyes Live Action Little Mermaid
Darling, it’s better under the sea! Disney is in the early stages of developing a live action version of The Little Mermaid, Deadline reports. Based on Hans Christian Anderson’s classic tale of Ariel the singing mermaid, the mouse house's animated version was released in 1989; a stage adaptation bowed on Broadway in 2008. This project is not to be confused with Working Title’s Little Mermaid, which is set to be led by Chloe Grace Moretz. Disney’s eagerly-anticipated live action Beauty and the Beast, starring Emma Watson, Audra McDonald and more, will bow on March 17, 2017.

Beth Howland Dead at 74
Beth Howland, who played Amy in the original Broadway cast of Company in 1970, died at the age of 74 on December 31 in Santa Monica, C.A. According to the New York Times, the cause was lung cancer; on her request, news about her passing has only just been released. Best known for her work as the ditzy waitress Vera on the sitcom Alice, Howland made her Main Stem debut in 1959’s Once Upon a Mattress.

The Donmar's on the Move
London’s buzzy Donmar Warehouse will break out beyond its Covent Garden home, opening a new, in-the-round, 420-seat temporary theater at King’s Cross. The Donmar Shakespeare Trilogy, directed by Phyllida Lloyd and starring Harriet Walter in an all-female company, is scheduled to play a 13-week repertory season at the venue, September 23 through December 17. All three productions: Julius Caesar, Henry IV and The Tempest, are set in a women’s prison. The Donmar will soon be represented in New York by the Daniel Radcliffe-led Privacy at the Public, Les Liaisons Dangereuses on Broadway and a transfer of The Tempest to St. Ann’s Warehouse in January 2017.

P.S. The previously reported She Loves Me cast album will drop digitally on June 10 and land in stores on July 8. The Tony-nominated revival is playing at Studio 54 through July 10.