Aladdin Director-Choreographer Casey Nicholaw Is Serious About Having Fun

Aladdin's Casey Nicholaw wants to move people. As a director and choreographer, it's literally in the job description. But for the two-time Tony Award winner, it's also how he measures success. Taking audiences on an emotional journey is Nicholaw's favorite part of the gig. He knows he's made an impact when laughter unexpectedly gives way to tears: "That to me is when I feel like I've done my job as a storyteller," he tells Broadway.com.

Nicholaw made his Broadway debut as a dancer in Crazy For You in 1992 and went on to perform in seven other productions, including Saturday Night Fever, Seussical and Thoroughly Modern Millie. 2005's Spamalot marked his first foray into Broadway choreography, followed by The Drowsy Chaperone in 2006, which he directed and choreographed. Something Rotten!, Mean Girls, The Prom and Some Like It Hot are just a few of his subsequent director-choreographer credits. In 2011, fresh off his Best Direction Tony Award win for The Book of Mormon, Nicholaw was tapped to lead Aladdin's pilot production.

Calling bright and early from California, Nicholaw reflects on the success of Disney's Aladdin on Broadway, tracing the production's evolution from its bare-bones world premiere in Seattle to a reworked out-of-town tryout in Toronto before finding its longtime home at the New Amsterdam Theatre. He opens up about bringing iconic numbers like "Friend Like Me" and "A Whole New World" to life onstage, weighs in on watching young performers come into their own and explains how his experience with Aladdin equipped him to take on his next big thing: The Greatest Showman.

How did performing in Broadway ensembles prepare you for your work as a choreographer and director?
Out of the eight shows that I did as a Broadway performer, seven of them were original. So I got to watch how shows were put together. I observed everything and I also had my own opinions. I always knew that I wanted to go that direction—not necessarily director, but choreographer. And then they came hand in hand. I know what it's like when someone has one vision as opposed to two people—which, when I watched other people do it, wasn't always compatible.

What drew you to Aladdin?
What was appealing when it was first brought up to me was the fact that when Howard [Ashman] and Alan [Menken] originally wrote the [1990 film] score, it was very musical theater. At that point, they had done [the 1989 film] The Little Mermaid, and then [the film] Beauty and the Beast was happening. After Beauty and the Beast came out first, they made Aladdin more of an action movie, so they cut a lot of the songs. Originally, Babkak, Omar and Kassim, who were three supporting characters, were narrating the film. And they didn't feel like it worked, but then they brought it to me and said, "We think that would actually be a good thing to hang the show on."

Can you speak to the initial challenges the team encountered when workshopping the show?
They did narrate the show. They started the show when we were in Toronto and no one cared, quite honestly. Narration doesn't really move people, so they were sort of saying things that had already happened. In the film, rather than Babkak, Omar and Kassim doing the opening number "Arabian Nights," they at least had Robin Williams' voice present as the peddler at the beginning of the movie. The problem with the movie at that point was that the Genie didn't really come in until 35 minutes in—and same thing with the show. People just wanted to see the Genie sooner. So we changed that. We got rid of all the narration for Babkak, Omar and Kassim and then put the Genie at the top of the show where people wanted to be welcomed by him.

How did you decide what to cut while still honoring the original vision for the film?
It definitely was a group decision. We were all going, "This is not quite working, because the show's not moving forward and people really want to see that Genie faster." We cut a lot of the stuff that didn't work, and some of the songs that we really did want to include—because we wanted Howard's stuff to be heard. But Alan wrote another new song for the show, "These Palace Walls." And we did keep "High Adventure" and "Babkak, Omar, Aladdin, Kassim." We did keep a few of the songs that were written by Howard and Alan originally.

What else did you want to capture on stage? The musical feels a little more adult, while still being family-friendly.
We were like, "No animals. There will be no animals on stage." [Laughs] But yeah, we decided to age it up. It wasn't that we didn't want to make it for kids, we just wanted to tell an adult story. And it was interesting, because when we first opened the show, kids didn't really come that much until year two or three. Because it was such a date night movie, it actually ended up being a date night show. So many people had gone to see the movie—at that point it was 30 years earlier—so people were seeing it to reminisce. I remember at the beginning a lot of people saying, "Oh my God, we loved the show. We want to bring our kids next time." You'd see couples together and they'd be wiping their eyes after "A Whole New World" because it was one of the first movies they saw.

Famously, the magic carpet was once a "mattress on a stick." Knowing what you know now, can you speak to the success of Aladdin, and the journey it took?
We did it in Seattle first and there wasn't much of a budget, but we were like, "We're just going to see if we have something here." And that was the whole plan with it. So that was the mattress on a stick thing. Like, "We just have to make it as simple as possible and let the music speak for itself and then we'll see later what we really need." And it was clear that we needed something really spectacular. And then what we had ended up working so well that we were like, "Okay, this is great," and we used it not just in "A Whole New World," but at the end of the show as well. But it changed a lot. It was really rough in Seattle, and not rough like hard—we were just discovering it. We changed the tone of it a lot. It was a lot more meta because we were thinking, we're bringing it to stage, but meta didn't really work and we all agreed on it.

How do you find the balance between honoring the Disney movie and creating something unique for the Broadway stage?
We just had to tell the story. That was the main thing, is being sure it was also theatrical. "One Jump" was the hardest to do because it's so good in the movie. He's running all over the place and he's jumping off rooftops and he's doing stuff that's not able to be done on stage that quickly. There's no jump cuts happening on stage. That was one of the biggest challenges.

Were there major changes made to the choreography before the show premiered on Broadway?
Most of the changes in that number happened between Seattle and Toronto, which was about two years. "Friend Like Me" was a disaster in Seattle. [Laughs] It really was. There was this thing where they changed clothes and then they were behind a mylar curtain and then they all popped out a second later and there were people popping out with pants around their ankles. It was awful. And these magic canes that were supposed to appear in people's hands, but the guys had to keep them in their pockets and the cane would explode in their pockets! So it was a disaster. And there was no tapping in Seattle either. It was [former Disney Theatrical Group president] Tom Schumacher who said, "You better put tapping in that number." It's basically a demand: "You have to put tapping in that number." All the time people are like, "He always puts a tap number in every show." And almost every single time it hasn't been my idea, it's been someone else's.

Do you have a favorite number, or is that like choosing a favorite child?
Well, it is, but with this show it's definitely "Friend Like Me" for me. So much fun. And that was a challenge at first too, because in the movie the Genie's shape-shifting all over the place and you can't do that on stage. So I was like, "Well, what would be a theatrical equivalent?" I think of it as channel surfing; change the channel quickly. Don't stay in any section for too long. And then there's a funny thing too that the Genie does, the Alan Menken medley in the middle of it. And the thing that's fun about that is the whole reason it's there is so people can change into tap shoes. At first, it was us playing because James Monroe Iglehart was like, "Why don't I just sing 'Beauty and the Beast?' That would be fun." So we did that and then we weren't sure how Alan was going to feel about it. And then he came to see it and he was like, "Oh my God, I love it. Why don't you do more of my songs?" And then we did. It was a really fun thing to discover.

How often do you come back to Aladdin on Broadway?
Honestly, it depends if I'm in town or not, but I do go a couple of times a year for sure, if not more. And the cast right now is great. They're really good. [Current Aladdin] Rodney [Ingram] started as an understudy for Aladdin and then he ended up heading the company in Mexico City and then we brought him back. He's so good; he's such an amazing performer who's grown so much too. For me, I'm sort of in my 'papa' phase these days. It's so cool to see all these kids that started out and see them grow up and come into their own in life and in career.

You've worked with so many incredible creatives. Now that you're a seasoned pro, what do you hope your companies continue to learn from you?
I hope they learn to find the joy in it. To be able to really work hard at their craft but still have a good time doing it and be passionate about it. People don't focus on it as much sometimes, if that makes sense. Everyone's so distracted these days, and it's so nice to have a place you can go and be focused together as a unit and as a company. That's what always feels good about it. I just want people to appreciate that experience and hopefully have a good time with it.

Is seeking out shows that bring joy something you've been intentional about when choosing projects?
It's so funny, it's really what comes my way and then what appeals to me. There are certain things that I go like, "Well, this should be something that's right for me, but it's not. Something doesn't feel authentic about it or something doesn't really feel funny to me." I go for the comedy, but my favorite thing to do is make sure it's something that's moving but also makes people laugh. They're laughing all night and suddenly they're going, "Oh, how'd I get these tears in my eyes?" That to me is when I feel like I've done my job as a storyteller.

Did you expect Aladdin to still be running on Broadway more than 12 years later?
No, I don't think you ever know. Certainly not when you're creating it, because all you think about when you're creating it is creating it. [Laughs] I never think past opening night when I'm working on a show.

What do you think makes Aladdin a Broadway blockbuster?
I think it's super entertaining and it's something you can see more than once. And also the nostalgia factor—which is what we discovered at the beginning—that people who saw it when they were younger, 30 years later, they were adults and they wanted to go back and see it because they remembered it fondly as a kid. It still really holds up. People will see it years after they saw it the first time and say, "Oh my gosh, I forgot how good that is." It's so much fun to see!

What are you working on next?
The Greatest Showman is the big one coming up. It opened in Bristol; it played there this spring as an out-of-town tryout for London. It's been great. It's humongous. It's the biggest show I've ever done. It's got a huge cast and it's got flying and fire and acrobats and children and everything. It's really fun.

Do you think your work on Aladdin prepared you for The Greatest Showman?
Definitely. The thing that really helps too is that when we started Aladdin in Seattle, it was 15 years ago. So it's also knowing all the people who work at Disney now. I didn't know them at all then and now we have such a relationship of years. We have a shorthand and everyone who's working on it is like family, because we've all gone through 12 companies of Aladdin and then Hercules and now this. It's great.

Would you ever return to the stage as an actor?
I think I'm over it. [Laughs] I'm happier being the papa than the kid.

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