Disney plans ‘Nemo’ musical

“Finding Nemo,” Disney’s Pixar Animation Studios’ blockbuster film, has already been reincarnated as an ice show spectacular. Next up: “Finding Nemo -- The Musical.”

Written by Tony Award-winning “Avenue Q” composer Robert Lopez and his wife, “Along the Way” composer Kristen Anderson-Lopez, the all-new production will open at Walt Disney World in Orlando, Fla., in late 2006.

Peter Brosius, artistic director of the Tony Award-winning Children’s Theatre of Minneapolis, is slated to direct. The show will include large-scale puppets as well as rod, bunraku and shadow puppetry. It will also feature dancers, acrobats and animated backdrops. It is a first for Disney, which has never re-created a nonmusical animated feature as an original musical production.

-- Lynne Heffley