unusual amount of freedom to modify the musical's script, among these changes making Cinderella a more active heroine; Meron credits Freedman with "giv[ing] her a little bit more of a backbone", ultimately developing the character into a more independent woman. Instead of making each character more modern, Zadan opted to "contemporize the qualities of the characters" instead. Freedman was more concerned with writing a film suitable for young girls in the 1990s than writing a multi-cultural film, inspired by stories about his wife being affected by women's representation in films when she was growing up. In a conscious decision to update the fairy tale for a modern generation, Freedman sought to deconstruct the messages young girls and boys were subjected to in previous versions of the fairy tale, explaining, "We didn't want the message to be 'just wait to be rescued", and thus altered the story to "reflect current ideas about what we should be teaching children." Attempting to eliminate the element that Cinderella is simply waiting to be rescued by the prince, Freedman explained, "I'm not saying that it's the most feminist movie you'll ever see, but it is compared the other versions." His efforts apply to both Cinderella and the prince; while Cinderella pines for independence from her stepfamily and actively disagrees with her stepmother's opinions about gender roles in marriage, the prince protests the idea of being married off to simply anyone his parents choose. Freedman continuously re-wrote the script between 1993 and 1997, particularly concerned about whether or not Houston would like his teleplay. Despite quickly earning approval from the Rodgers & Hammerstein Organization, Houston typically took longer to make decisions, and although the producers sent and continuously reminded her about the script, it remained unread for several months. Since Houston was still slated to play Cinderella at the time, production was unable to proceed without her involvement. In a final attempt to earn Houston's approval, Meron and Zadan enlisted Broadway actors to perform a read-through for the singer, namely La Chanze as Cinderella, Brian Stokes Mitchell as the prince, Theresa Meritt as the Fairy Godmother and Dana Ivey as the Stepmother. They hosted the table-read at the Rihga Royal Hotel in New York City, one of Houston's favorite locations at the time. Houston arrived at the reading several hours late, by which time some of the actors had grown frustrated and weary. Houston remained silent