If you ever wanted to see the Avengers’ Captain America and Nick Fury sing and dance their way through a mini-musical about Cap’s life, well, it’s time to head to Disneyland.
Disney and Marvel have teamed up for Rogers: The Musical, a half-hour stage show at Disney California Adventure’s Hyperion Theater in Anaheim, Calif., that premiered on Friday (June 30).
The new one-act show – which is full of goofy humor and a range of musical styles – grew out of a brief sequence in an episode of the Disney+ series Hawkeye in 2021. In the show, the title character (an Avenger himself, played by Jeremy Renner) attends a showing of Rogers: The Musical, and the song “Save the City” is performed by characters playing Avengers. Both the musical and “Save the City” became fan favorites, with the latter generating just over 1 million on-demand official streams in the U.S., according to Luminate.
Billboard got a sneak peek at the new production the day before its premiere, which was followed by a panel discussion with the show’s creative team.
“We were like every fan,” said Dan Fields, executive creative director, Disney Live Entertainment during the panel. “We saw [‘Save the City’] and said, ‘I want to see the rest of it! I want to see all of Rogers: The Musical!’ But then we realized, ‘Hey, we’re Disney Live Entertainment, we can do that!’ So that’s what we set out to do.”
Fans will be happy to know: “Save the City” appears in full in the real-world Rogers: The Musical production, along with seven other musical numbers.
Rogers: The Musical is scheduled to run through Aug. 31 at Disney California Adventure. It’s the first show at the nearly 2,000-seat Hyperion in more than three years, since the COVID-19 pandemic shut down its previous production, Frozen – Live at the Hyperion, on March 14, 2020. Nothing has been announced by Disney if Rogers: The Musical will be staged in other Disney Parks or properties (such as Disney Cruise Line).
In Rogers: The Musical, we follow Steve “Captain America” Rogers over 70-plus years – from his origin as a scrawny soldier-turned-beefy superhero in the 1940s through his teaming with the rest of the Avengers and his long-simmering love story with Peggy Carter. The show’s book was written by Hunter Bell, while Christopher Lennertz is the musical’s composer, conductor and arranger.
“[It] was really important to all of us, [show creator and director] Jordan [Peterson] and Hunter and I … to give everyone — both musical theater fans and superhero fans — something they would love about the music,” Lennertz said. “And the fact that we get to span 70 years and do everything from ‘40s-style big band jazz to a singer/songwriter style pop tune and obviously the Nick Fury patter song meets ‘Uptown Funk’ — it’s the idea of giving everyone something that they can grab onto and really feel like it’s part of their story too.”
The Nick Fury patter song Lennertz calls out is the tune “What You Missed,” in which Fury explains – through song and dance – to a just-awakened Rogers (who has been asleep for 70 years but hasn’t aged) what’s happened over the last seven decades.
Dave Bushore, vice president of franchise creative and marketing, Marvel Studios, recalled during the panel a memorable moment when he and Fields presented a preliminary version of Rogers: The Musical to Kevin Feige, president of Marvel Studios.
Bushore said, “We’re sitting in Kevin’s office, me and Dan…” Fields: “And Kevin says, ‘Nick Fury sings? That should be on the billboard!’ He said, ‘Embrace that, lean into that!’”
Rogers: The Musical
Sean Teegarden/Disneyland Resort
In addition to the show’s songs, theatergoers will be treated to pre-show music piped in from an onstage radio. It plays period-appropriate jazzy tunes, including a song that references “Elias & Co.,” a store inside Disney California Adventure, named after Walt Disney’s middle name, Elias. There’s no word on if any of the music from the show (including the pre-show selections) will be released commercially or through streaming services.
With Rogers: The Musical bringing a stage show back to the Hyperion after more than three years, it’s another way visitors to the park – often young fans – will get to experience live musical theater, perhaps for the first time.
“For a lot of people who come to our parks, they may not have had a lot of experience coming to theater — to traditional theater,” said Fields. “But here’s an opportunity to combine a love of theater with a love of superheroes right here in a theme park. This is a real show for families, whether you already knew the story of Steve Rogers or not. So hopefully everyone’s found something to enjoy in the show.”
