from 2010
MARILYN MAGNESS
talks about Disney's live entertainment process and her role in it

by Scott Wolf

I'm particularly excited to bring you my discussions with Marilyn Magness! She is an essential piece of the puzzle in learning about live entertainment in the Disney resorts, a topic I'm particularly fond of. Marilyn began her Disney career as Dolly in Walt Disney World's Hoop De Doo Revue, and has gone on to actually create shows herself! She is so talented and has such enthusiasm for her work and passion in discussing it. Marilyn is part old-school Disney, with a love for the entertainment of the past, and even a desire to bring some of it back, but she is also completely current and keyed in to the needs of today's Disney world. I'm so delighted to be able to share our conversation with you! 

Scott Wolf: What is Disney Creative Entertainment and what is your job with them?

Marilyn Magness: It’s actually Walt Disney Imagineering Creative Entertainment - WDICE. This a high profile, project-oriented group of creative directors and producers who work across all the sites. My job is currently the Creative Entertainment Portfolio Leader for the Disneyland Resort and a Creative Director for Theme Parks and Resorts. It’s a long title but what it really means is that I am part of a team whose job it is to work closely with the park entertainment leaders to create unique projects for a particular site – my responsibility is in Anaheim currently -- as well as work to leverage creative concepts across the globe. When we share concepts globally, we work through best practices. Take the Toy Story brand. If the film opens internationally it would make sense for all parks to have entertainment based on the Toy Story characters. Since we are all aware of what each other is doing up at WDI, it is quick to make those connections. We can share ideas. We can build on what other parks are doing. Part of what we do is to connect the dots, and make it easier for our creative teams around the world to do the best work they can. Of course, since DCA is on everybody’s front burner, it’s a lot of fun to be fully immersed in the work of the Disneyland Resort Entertainment team.

SW: From the beginning to the end of the development of a show, what would be your role as a creative director?

MM: The creative director is responsible to see the vision through. Often I’m given the chance to establish that vision, as with The Princess and the Frog Showboat Jubilee. Sometimes I am given the job of refining the work of other people and keeping us all on the same page, moving towards the same goal.

SW: So you are sometimes involved initially with coming up with a show idea?

MM: It happens in many ways. Sometimes, the need is established by the senior executives or the producers. They recognize a need. Let’s say we have an empty venue, a Diamond Horseshoe theater in Florida that’s empty for example. Problem revealed... solution needed. We’re working on that right now. We might have a simple business need – somebody decides the company needs to make more money and would like entertainment, merchandise and food to work together to see how that can happen. Voila! The Princess Fantasy Faire, Bibbidi Bobbidi Boutique and the food location! What can we do to give more to our guests and improve our product? There’s a certain fun to all this – it’s like a big puzzle. I can give it my best shot, get our park teams together, or I can hire writers or outside consultants, bring them in, and have a brainstorming session, which we often do. After all of that, we may have ten ideas. Now we can prioritize them and pitch them back to the vice presidents of entertainment or to the marketing directors, and they can give us their feedback…“You know, it’s a little bit too much for our budget,” “It’s not big enough,” “Way too over the top,” “We like the idea,” “Make it pink,” “Make it blue…” You get it.

Then there is an entire other body of work. The Character work. This was launched when our leaders clearly threw down a gauntlet to their creative teams: “We want to reinvent the way we meet and greet characters in our parks. We no longer want to meet a princess or Donald or Hercules up against a wall on Main Street where they stand still and shake hands because we don’t like that long line.” They’re right, you know. I call it a vaccination line. It always looks to me like everyone is waiting dutifully to get vaccinated. They just stand there and they’re bored! So I’m on a committee now that’s working on new ideas for meet and play experiences, new ways to experience the Characters in our parks.

Down at Walt Disney World, as part of the new Fantasyland expansion, we’re creating a new kind of princess “attraction” – an opportunity for larger groups of guests to go in and meet princesses in a one on one situation, and truly step into their magic. You’ve just immersed yourself into this Disney movie. It’s like stepping into the story and playing a little part. That’s very exciting to me because if you can do it for one princess, you could do it for every Disney Character. You can make the experience more special.

So now, what can we do with Mickey? How do we meet Rapunzel? The creative directors across the globe are all musing on these questions and collectively trying to come up with the most fun experiences possible. Rapunzel’s got miles of golden hair. Let’s not put her up against a building. Let’s figure out. Should she come out of a tower? Maybe all the kids shout, “Rapunzel, Rapunzel, let down your hair!” and boom, there she is.

SW: Once you’re set on the idea and the idea has been approved by all areas, then what is your role?

MM: Then we hire the staff and put the development into motion. I am part of a team of people who recommend staff members that I think would champion the vision that’s created. Sometimes they’re park full time people, and sometimes they’re consultants, just like I was before I came back into the Company in a full time role. You’re trying to get the right fit, right talent basically. You’re trying to match the project with the person. If it’s a spectacular show, then you want to go to the Steven Davison’s of the world - the people who have experience in designing spectacular shows and large-scale work. If it’s a small, emotional event, and you want to pluck the heartstrings, then you want to find writers and directors who have that experience. If I am the creative director, or in this case, the Entertainment Portfolio Leader of the Disneyland Resort, my job is to lead the team, oversee their work, and support their efforts. It’s a little like laying railroad track. The little car’s chugging, everyone’s on the team, and we’re pushing this little thing forward. I just have to keep making sure I’m laying the track in the right direction until we get to the end. When we get to the end, if we’ve done our job right, everybody wins.

At the point where we open a show, the music director, the set designer, the folks creating the costumes and the props, the writers and directors - all of those people are going to be sitting arm in arm because at Disney, as we all know, we are only as strong as our weakest link. So I guess my job is really to make sure that every link is strong, and if I feel a weakness, then I shore it up. Ultimately, if the chain breaks, it’s my responsibility.

So that’s it, basically. I don’t really do anything in particular. It’s like that Walt Disney quote - he’s like a bee just buzzing around all the flowers. That is, in a metaphorical way, what I do.

SW: How does audience reaction play a part in a show or parade once it finally hits the street or stage?

MM: Everything is so interactive now. There is so much weight put on guest satisfaction and guest dissatisfaction that I think there is rarely a show that we do now that we don’t use our audience almost as a cast member in a show. We even dress rehearse with fake audiences now which is what we never used to do. In the early days, we’d dress rehearse and then we’d open and the audience would come. Now we’ll dress rehearse and bring in family and friends, sometimes fill the street with 2,000 people, test their reaction, and then adjust accordingly. Nobody much likes going in to a show without all the answers any more. I guess that’s a good thing. It does take a little bit of the fun out of it. I wrote a directed a show way back when called The Main Street Hop. It was the first time we said, “We’re going to try to see if we can get 6,000 people in the street to do the Twist.” Of course, we couldn’t test 6,000 people, so we just tried it. I had to add some more musical bars to get people off and back onto the curb so they wouldn’t get run over by a bunch of little Honda motor scooters. We kind of tested it on the fly. Those were really fun days – lots of risk – and lots of laughs. Certainly there is value in testing a show well before the normal guest sees it, but you’ll never really know what you’re doing right or wrong until you put it out there in front of the real Disney crowd. Then it’s all about figuring out how to increase their good time. As you do it more and more you know the things that they will do and they want to do and the things that they don’t want to do.

Then there’s the Disney Channel. Suddenly there’s a whole new musical palette that the kids know that the parents don’t know. The older AP’s (annual passholders) may not watch the Disney Channel but man, the kids are all over it.

The Disney Channel’s success shows how the Company is just exploding. Streams of new audiences, loads of new media, and a huge entertainment conglomerate that has the power to change lives by the millions. We’re also getting older. Our catalogue of Characters and music is increasing by leaps and bounds. It’s hard to do a Disney Musical Revue now. Remember those old Kids of the Kingdom shows? What music would you put in it? Would it be filled with classic Disney stuff? Pixar Characters? A Disney Channel salute? How far back do you go? Even if you just do the hits…you’ve got a ten hour show. For kids you want to include the hip new stuff; for the senior Disneylanders you want to do the legacy pieces. It’s tricky.

SW: Do you think the audiences of today would still appreciate an extravagant revue production – a show like One Man’s Dream or Showbiz Is…?

MM: A thousand percent! And a good old Golden Horseshoe show. And a Tomorrowland rock ‘n’ roll show. And a Disney After Dark night of fun. And an Easter parade. I absolutely believe that the audiences are underserved with the current Entertainment menu and that we should resurrect and reinvent some of the things we used to do for the generation of kids who have never seen them. But I can’t make money out of thin air. We’re all going to have to be patient. The brighter days are just around the corner. I think ten years from now everything old will be new again – and we’ll be doing the “brand new holiday parade” and “brand new Character revue.” Just don’t tell anybody that we’ve come full circle!

I do think sometimes we try to out-think our audience. I think we always have to remember what business we’re in - the theme park business. We should do what we do best. Because the truth is, what we do best nobody else in the world does. When we try to imitate other people, then we shoot ourselves in the foot.

We’re not Broadway. And who wants to be? Let Broadway be Broadway and let’s be Disney. Certainly we can be inspired by the advances in technical theater; certainly we can exploit the latest in special effects and lighting and rigging and design - but I think it’s important that we remember our audience and what they value most. Let Broadway impress, we should delight. Let others compete to deliver the single best show of the year. Walt was never about doing one thing well. He wanted to do lots of things well. So I like to concentrate on delivering the best time anybody ever had. If we have to do one thing really well, let’s put the “ooh and ahh” back into people’s lives. That’s a great job – that’s a job worth doing!

SW: I know you’re very much involved with atmosphere entertainment. What types of atmosphere does that include?

MM: The bands, the Character programs, the holiday entertainment, the new synergy product, and all the new stuff that’s coming on line at Disney’s California Adventure. Some folks think the atmosphere entertainment is not as critical as the larger stuff we do. I happen to think that atmosphere entertainment, when it really brings the lands to life, is the real backbone of the guest experience.

Look at it like a pebble in a pond. When an atmosphere act performs, circles start to form. Take the Dapper Dans (barbershop quartet)… four guys start singing in striped coats on the street corner at Disneyland and there will be fifty people who circle around them and stay the whole set. Then there’ll be another circle of 300 people or so who will stay five minutes and walk on. Whatever five minutes of that 20 minute set they see, they enjoy – but they only stay five minutes or so. Then there are another four or five thousand people who walk up Main Street during those twenty minutes. They never stop, but they clock it. “I heard Walt Disney’s barbershop quartet and they were great.” Over the course of one day the Dapper Dans may do six sets and entertain thirty thousand people. Now don’t tell me atmosphere entertainment isn’t important!

That’s why when somebody says they need to find a director for the Dapper Dans and one for a stage show I’ll really think about the director on the street. At the end of the day, these tiny little pockets of atmosphere entertainment have huge audiences. Beyond that, they breathe life and personality into the entire resort. It’s important to get it right.

SW: I never thought of it that way!

If you’re looking at responsibility in the parks, the atmosphere entertainment and the parades are the most important thing we do. A Disney theme park parade, adding up all its daily audiences, has the biggest audience of any event anywhere in the world over the course of a year’s time. And it says more about what Disney is, what we’re about, than anything else we do. Great music, entertaining spectacle, beloved Disney characters, bright colors, and performances that bring you laughter, joy, delight – these are the simple ingredients that make a great parade. When you get right down to it, these are the cornerstones of all great Disney entertainment. We have everything we need to keep our guests happy – all we need to do is remember to keep it fun.

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