Can We Talk about Dumbo Being Adapted To Stage

I've talked about this in the past, I'm a lover of the theater. Heck, I even did a Music Fridays dedicated to this subject and I usually trust Disney's decisions when they decide to adapt one of their films to stage because most of the time, I can see them working.  However, looking up what three of the upcoming projects from Walt Disney Theatrical include Aladdin,  The Jungle Book and today's topic....

Dumbo.    Now Aladdin has already debuted and I've heard some good things about it and I'm more than thrilled that they put Proud of Your Boy back into the story and The Jungle Book is one that I can actually see working because just like The Lion King, it has a story that is able to transport you to another world and make you part of it.  I'm not saying that Dumbo has a bad story far from it because if you've read A Look at Disney, you know much I love this film  but this just seems like an odd decision for me. It makes me ask "WHY?"   

Well, yes there is that but let's take Uncle Scrooge out of the equation  for a second here.   Let's take a look at some of the other adaptions that have been presented to us.  The first Disney film to be adapted to stage was Beauty and The Beast.    Followed by The Lion King,  and then we've also been given Mary Poppins,   Tarzan and The Little Mermaid.    

Now out of all these I've only seen The Lion King  and Mary Poppins both of which were great . Especially The Lion King but I've noticed a trend here with most of Disney's film to stage adaptions, they seem to have these fantastical stories that feel larger than life.  Now yes,  one of Disney's latest adaptions could be used as a rebuttal against that.  I'm referring to Newsies.  

Now  I don't know much about Newsies as I've never seen the film and I'm not too surprised  from the little I know about this film, it does make sense that Disney would want to adapt it to stage but with Dumbo, I just can't see it.   Also another minor thing to take into consideration is the runtime,   Dumbo as a film only lasts 64 minutes and most plays last a while such as The Lion King and now it's been a while since I've seen the play but according to my research, it's 2 hours and 45 minutes. That's pretty long and looking at Dumbo, there'd be a lot of area to fill in and I'm afraid that it would come across as just padding. Now it's true that there are new songs written for these adaptions such as the wonderful If Only from The Little Mermaid and He's Live In You from The Lion King.   I have no doubt that these new songs would be great and fit in the story and world of Dumbo rather well but I'm just unsure. Each time of think of this adaption, I can't help but be reminded of another stage adaption that boggled my mind.

Spider-Man: Turn Off The Dark.   Now this play had gone through so many rewrites and I followed it just to see and this play just looked liked it was bound to fail because Spidey isn't something that should be on Broadway.   Now I'm sure if and when Dumbo flies into The Great White Way, it will be better than the joke of the play, I mentioned up above but I'm still not sure.   It just seems odd that out of all of Disney's films, that they'd choose Dumbo, when I think that films such as Brother Bear or Bedknobs and Broomsticks would seem more  apt and fitting for a stage adaption.   Now I may have my reservations due to Dumbo being my favorite film and I worry that when adapting this, I fear that they may screw it up.  One good side thing I can say about this is that at least Dumbo onstage should look better than this.

I still haven't gotten over Davis.   I guess I just need to wait and see how things pan out.  I shouldn't jump the gun on this but I'm still on the fence about this but I'm nervous with this adaption.   What are your thoughts? Tell me in the comments!