Synergy!

It didn't take long for this to happen. Can Broadway be far off? Can Toy Story! All Singing! All Dancing! soon be gracing our futures? Methinks we can bank on it...

Nemo swims to the stage

Visitors to Walt Disney World's Animal Kingdom might find a chance to catch Disney's newest stage show, Finding Nemo -- The Musical, which has gone into quiet-opening preview performances in advance of its official premier in January.

Performances of the musical in the newly enclosed Theater in the Wild are running intermittently for the next few weeks, and will be open to all park guests.

Based on the blockbuster 2003 animated Pixar movie Finding Nemo, the stage show features the characters Nemo, Marlin, Dori, Bruce, Crush and others.

Featuring original songs by Tony Award-winning Robert Lopez and Kristen Anderson-Lopez, Finding Nemo -- The Musical uses puppets, dancers, aerialists and animated backdrops to create such acts as tap-dancing sharks and bicycle-riders.

The show replaces the Tarzan Rocks! show, which closed in February after a seven-year run. Disney has spent the subsequent time enclosing and updating the 1,500-seat theater and building the production that Disney officials have described as rivaling Animal Kingdom's big show, Festival of the Lion King.

I've long thought it would be nice if at least a bit of the money that cascaded off the musicals, toys, sequels and t.v. shows derived from the original features could find its way back to the people who created the original work. Will that happen in your lifetime or mine? Doubt it.