In an interview with Variety following the Daytime Emmy win that officially turned him into an EGOT king, composer (and living legend) Alan Menken let slip the name of the new Disney+ live-action series that he’s working on with Luke Evans and Josh Gad that is set in the same universe as the $1 billion grossing Beauty and the Beast.

This new musical series, which hasn’t formally begun production, comes from Gad and co-creators Edward Kitsis and Adam Horowitz, is described by Menken as “a new Beauty and the Beast prequel.” And it’s got an appropriately Beauty and the Beast-y title: Little Town. (Menken calls it The Little Town, but we’ve confirmed that it’s simply Little Town.)

Obviously, the title is a reference to the opening musical number in Beauty and the Beast, “Belle,” which begins:

Little town

It's a quiet village

Every day

Like the one before

Little town

Full of little people

Waking up to say

beauty-and-the-beast
Image via Disney

While it’s unclear who is providing the lyrics to Menken’s musical score, it’s nice that the title of the show is a nod to Howard Ashman, Beauty and the Beast’s lyricist who sadly passed away from complications related to AIDS before the movie even debuted. Ashman’s story is brought to beautiful life next week with the Disney+ original documentary Howard, which has tons of great, sometimes heartbreaking anecdotes from the making of the original Beauty and the Beast animated classic.

Hopefully production on Little Town can begin once everything is back up and running again. We can’t wait to see what Menken (and Gad and Kitsis and Horowitz) are cooking up with this Gaston-and-LeFou-show. Gad and Evans’ portrayals of the famous Beauty and the Beast characters were an obvious highlight of the live-action remake.