Beauty and the Beast (Disney song) author Jerry Griswold believes that the song's opening line "tale as old as time" alludes to the fact that Belle's story is an ancient, timeless one "deliberately situated within the context of other traditional tales;" hers is simply "the newest incarnation" of it. "The Translation of the Songs in Disney's "Beauty and the Beast": an example of Manipulation" author Lucía Loureiro Porto agrees that although the song "does not tell any story, it is made of phrases that imply that love is as old a feeling as mankind." According to Perry Seibert of AllMovie, "Beauty and the Beast" is "as
Beauty and the Beast (musical) accepting a new version of such an immensely popular work. "Beauty and the Beast" became Disney's first Broadway venture, although "Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs", a stage adaptation of Disney's animated film of the same name, had premiered in New York in 1979, produced by Radio City Music Hall Productions, Inc. Theatre Under the Stars' executive director Frank Young campaigned heavily to have the show open in Houston, Texas even getting Governor Ann Richards involved in order to secure the stage rights. Roth summarized "Beauty and the Beast" as a story about "seeing past the exterior of a person