Did they? I haven't heard much about it.

No.

I LOVE it

I liked Two Worlds and You'll Be In My Heart.
That's it.
So, not really.

I loved the music.

One of my favourite CR's to listen to.

The big let down for me was the staging.

it was mediocre, as far as i'm concerned- i saw it only two weeks before it closed.
but i didn't think it was bad. just that it was probably not the best choice for a stage production.

Phil Collins's score for Tarzan is one that gets the job done, even if there are places where the lyrics could be substantially improved. There are many shows with comparable scores that perform much better and the story is not fundamentally unstageable, so I don't feel that it was the choice of material that was the main reason for the original production being mediocre or poorly received by audiences and critics alike. Theatre after all is a fusion of elements, not only what appears on the page.

Yes, there may be Disney films that seem as if they might lend themselves more easily to a stage adaptation, but any adaptation is going to have its own unique challenges. The choice made here that ultimately failed the production was in hiring an inexperienced director to helm the process. The presence of a strong, experienced director cannot be underestimated when it comes to the creation of new musicals. This is so clear, for example, in the way that Harold Prince and Michael Bennett pushed for changes in Follies; although they themselves did not write a word or compose a note, they are clearly responsbile for helping shape the show into the amazing piece of work that it is - or was in 1971, the subsequent revisions have all composmised the show and I can't wait for the day when we revert to the show's original text for stagings of the show.

Getting back to Tarzan, the hiring of Bob Crowley, who is a designer by trade, was a misguided move on the part of Disney Theatricals. Crowley has created some fantastic scenic designs, but his work for Tarzan was not on par with his capabilities and, because he was also directing the show, there was no outside eye to guide his vision. This ultimately was an insurmountable problem for the show, especially when his poorly designed set, misguidedly created to show the "nuts and bolts" of its workings, was placed in a traditional theatre space that happened to be in the wrong Broadway house for the show. Less problematic was the fact that he, because of his inexperience, could not offer guidance to Phil Collins and David Henry Hwang and push them to accomplish better work. Disney Theatricals should have weighed up their options mor carefully before making this choice, as it was in this translation from idea to text to theatre where the stumbling blocks that ultimately crippled Tarzan were encountered.

Later days
David

Oh my god. My heart just skipped a beat when I realised Bob Crowley designed the set... I don't understand how he could design such a beautiful set for Mary Poppins, Aida, get a gazzilion Tony nominations and then design the set for Tarzan! What the hell was he thinking!?!?!?! Oh dear. It's not as if Disney is short on money.