[5] This was confirmed on April 7, 2006, when Disney announced that the musical adaptation of Finding Nemo, with new songs written by Tony Award-winning Avenue Q composer Robert Lopez and his wife, Kristen Anderson-Lopez, would "combine puppets, dancers, acrobats and animated backdrops" and open in late 2006.

[6] Years later, Anderson-Lopez explained that she had written a compact 15-minute a cappella version of the story of Oedipus; someone at Disney read it and recognized her talent for condensing material, and offered her the opportunity to make a pitch for the Finding Nemo project.

[8] Anderson-Lopez said that the couple agreed to write the adaptation of "one of their favorite movies of all time" after considering "the idea of people coming in [to see the musical] at 4, 5 or 6 and saying, 'I want to do that'....So we want to take it as seriously as we would a Broadway show".

[13] The musical is based on the plot of the film Finding Nemo, with characters performed in large puppetry by live actors and dancers on stage.

In the revamped version, a framing device is added in which the Tank Gang narrate the story before being released from the Marine Life Institute (depicted in Finding Dory).

A soundtrack album was released a day prior to the original show's opening date in 2007, with Anderson-Lopez and Lopez providing the voices of Dory and Marlin, respectively.