Disney Planning Stage Musical Of ‘Hidden Figures’
A stage musical adaptation of the 2016 Oscar-nominated hit film Hidden Figures is in the works at Disney, with plans to assemble a creative team of Black artists, Disney Theatrical Productions confirms to Deadline. The project has been in development, quietly, for a few years, but came to light this week with a mention in a New York Times report on Black theater artists. Film scholar and former film critic Elvis Mitchell is attached to the project as a creative consultant.
Other details about the musical production, including casting, creative team, and target dates, are to be determined.
Loosely based on Margot Lee Shetterly’s nonfiction book of the same title, director Theodore Melfi’sHidden Figures chronicled the contributions made by Black female NASA mathematicians who were crucial – if unheralded – to the United States’ Space Race missions of the 1960s. Taraji P. Henson starred as mathematician Katherine Johnson, and Octavia Spencer earned an Oscar nomination for her performances as NASA supervisor and mathematician Dorothy Vaughan. Also starring were Janelle Monáe, Kevin Costner, Kirsten Dunst, Jim Parsons, Glen Powell, and Mahershala Ali.