Texas church facing backlash for unauthorized 'Hamilton' production, made the same alterations to Disney's 'Beauty & the Beast'

by Chris Peterson, OnStage Blog Founder

The Door McAllen Ministry in Texas has been facing backlash over this unauthorized production of the Broadway hit, ‘Hamilton’, since they performed it over two days last weekend.

The Door McAllen production included many edits to the original script where dialogue was changed and text added to highlight the teachings of Jesus. The show also featured a sermon at the conclusion of the performance which included anti-LGBTQ rhetoric.

Church officials claimed they had acquired a license to perform the show, however, the legal team at ‘Hamilton’ confirmed that was not true. The church was served a cease and desist notice but allowed the church to perform its last performance under strict guidelines.

This issue doesn’t appear to be over yet, as the team at ‘Hamilton’ is currently collecting more information and planning on contacting the Door McAllen in the coming days.

While seeing what the Door McAllen did might seem unprecedented, it should be noted that this isn’t the first time they’ve done this. In fact, OnStage Blog has obtained a video of the entire performance of “Disney’s Beauty & the Beast” the church produced in 2018. The show featured the same type of alterations to the script that occurred in ‘Hamilton’. Scenes and dialog were added to show the teachings of Jesus and featured the Beast being “saved” at the end of the show.

Due to copyright laws(something we’re going to adhere to), we cannot post the entire show. However, we will post clips of the alterations the Door McAllen made.

It should be noted that the version of the show the church performed is very much the Disney version and not a random rendition of the classic tale. As you can see at the top of the show they play the overture and show the live-action movie poster. It’s also important to note that there is no live pit and a backing track was used(another copyright violation).

The first alteration to the script occurred at around the 1:22 mark. The dialog added showed Belle praying to Jesus. “Jesus, I know there’s good in the Beast,” she says. “Help me to see the good in him as you see the good in me.”

The next alteration occurred after the song “Something There”, where Belle starts to introduce the Bible’s teachings to the Beast.

The next alteration occurs after the Beast sings “Evermore” and then prays to Jesus. “Jesus, I understand it now,” the Beast says. “You also sacrificed your life,you were able to look past my sin.”

The final alteration is at the end of the show when the Beast dies. He states right before dying, “At least I got to see you one last time….and know the true love of Jesus Christ.”

Belle then prays to Jesus to give him a second chance. After the Beast dies, Belle states she wishes that “Jesus gave him a second chance”. Then, after a weird sound cue, the Beast is revived as a human again.

The Beast states, “This whole time, my sins have brought a curse upon this entire castle. But since you showed me (who) Jesus really is and the love he has for me, only then was I share that love. Jesus Christ broke the cure and gave us all a second chance!”

Belle replies, “Glory be to Jesus!”

End of show.

Now, it should be noted that all of this appears to be a violation of copyright. Disney hasn’t made a license available for the live-action movie version to be adapted for the stage, and the stage version’s right holder, MTI, wouldn’t afford a license that has songs from the live-action movie.

So it’s highly unlikely, just like ‘Hamilton’, that the Door McAllen had permission from Disney to produce such a show. I’ve also reached out to MTI to see if a license was granted to the Door McAllen in 2018. Even if it was, the changes the church made to the script would not have been allowed under the licensing agreements.

The Door McAllen would be in legal hot water even if it was simply a staged reading of the script. There is no "fair use" exception for something like this, and changing the script doesn’t avoid the problem either.

The fact that the Door McAllen also mixed the stage version and live-action movie version together is also another problem as it might violate music copyright law as Grand Rights licenses could be needed for songs such as “Evermore.” Those would have been granted by Disney and it’s highly unlikely they approved that.

It also needs to be noted that this video had been streaming on Youtube since 2018 and was only taken down in the aftermath of the ‘Hamilton’ controversy over the weekend.

Finally, there’s another wrinkle in all of this - while the church doesn’t appear to have charged tickets to the event, they did sell concessions. The clip below shows a church official advertising the concessions being sold during the performance. This means monies were earned during a violation of copyrighted material.

While I don’t expect Disney to take action over this, I have been told by sources that they are looking into what happened with ‘Hamilton’. Incidents like these must be pointed out as a warning to others who might try to do the same.

This is a developing story and will be updated with new information as it’s obtained.