Last Chance for Beauty and the Beast on Broadway

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Little Mermaid flips Beauty off Broadway - Yahoo! News:

With room for only one princess on New York's Broadway, Beauty is to hand over her crown to the mermaid Ariel after 13 years as titleholder.

"Beauty and the Beast," a musical love story between a young girl and a beast who is really a prince, will close on Broadway on July 29 after a 13-year run to make room for a musical version of Disney's animated tale "The Little Mermaid."

Thomas Schumacher, the president of Disney Theatrical, said the decision to close "Beauty" was based on a number of reasons, including the lack of theaters available on Broadway, and a feeling the two shows were too similar to be running together.

"Two fairy tales in the kind of princess-y realm, that's a lot," he told the New York Times.

"Beauty," which opened at the Palace Theater in April 1994, and moved to the smaller Lunt-Fontanne Theater in 1999, is the sixth-longest-running show in Broadway history.

When it closes, the musical will have played on Broadway for almost 5,500 performances.