Mary Poppins in 2004, Walt Disney first attempted to purchase the film rights to "Mary Poppins" from P. L. Travers as early as 1938, but was rebuffed because Travers did not believe a film version of her books would do justice to her creation and did not want an animated cartoon based on it. The books had been a favourite of Disney's daughters when they were children, and he finally succeeded in purchasing the rights in 1961, although Travers demanded and got script approval rights. The relationship between Travers and Disney is detailed in "Mary Poppins She Wrote", a biography of Travers,
Mary Poppins (musical) Mary from Brown in February 2010 in Tempe, Arizona and played the role until February 2011.Nicolas Dromard, who previously understudied the role of Bert on Broadway, took over the role from September 2010 until September 2011. Steffanie Leigh joined the cast as Mary Poppins on February 8, 2011 and was replaced on December 6, 2011, by Megan Osterhaus who had played Winifred Banks on Broadway and later returned to Broadway as Winifred. The U.S. National tour played its last performance on June 2, 2013, in Anchorage, Alaska. A new UK tour began at the Curve Theatre, Leicester on October 13,