About the work
Tarzan is a musical with music and lyrics by Phil Collins and a book by David Henry Hwang, premiered on Broadway in 2006. It is based on the 1999 Disney animated film and on Edgar Rice Burroughs' literary character. In the German-speaking world it became a long-running success.
Plot
After a shipwreck, a human foundling, whose parents die in the African jungle, grows up with a family of gorillas. Lovingly raised by the gorilla mother Kala, Tarzan becomes "king of the apes" but constantly wrestles with his otherness. When the researcher Jane arrives in the jungle with an expedition, Tarzan encounters other humans for the first time—and love. He must choose between the world that raised him and the world from which he came.
Cultural significance
Tarzan combines Phil Collins's rousing, percussive film music—including the Oscar-winning song You'll Be in My Heart—with spectacular aerial-acrobatic staging. While the Broadway run was short, the musical became a phenomenon in Germany: the Hamburg production ran for several years, followed by Stuttgart, making Tarzan one of the most successful Disney musicals in the German-speaking world.