In 1991, Disney’s hugely successful animated feature Beauty and the Beast made its screen debut, complete with a talking candelabra, clock and teapot, a Busby Berkley-inspired number featuring dancing plates and spoons, and the strongest heroine yet to grace a Disney screen – the smart, book-loving Belle.

Three decades later, the film’s screenwriter Linda Woolverton is sitting in the foyer of Sydney’s Capitol Theatre, where the Broadway musical based on the film is about to open, chatting about Belle with as much passion as if she had created her yesterday.

Shubshri Kandiah and Brendan Xavier in Disney’s Beauty and the Beast. Photo © Daniel Boud

Asked if she still feels invested in the film and musical all these years on, she responds with an adamant “Yes! Because it was my first born child, really. I also had my daughter around the same time. I’m never not working on the show in some form or other, so I am fully invested and I remain really involved in its evolution.”

When it comes to Woolverton’s career, the fact that Beauty and the Beast was “her first born child” is just one...