Disney Parks Blog: As we prepare to debut our newest stage spectacular, “Beauty and the Beast,” aboard the Disney Dream this November, I want to give you an all-access pass behind the curtain to see how we create our elaborate Broadway-style shows at sea. Let me just say, it takes a whole lot of pixie dust and some big dreamers to make these productions happen.
12 comments:
The article does not really cover in depth what it could have been about. Like the comments in under the article, I do look forward to the following articles on the rehearsal processes and more in depth coverage of the technology that makes the theater magic possible. I would especially want to know about the unique circumstances of cruise productions and how they deal with them. Still, the very general and vague timeline of mounting a Disney cruise production was interesting. Two years does not seem to be enough time to conceive the idea of a production, write the script, design it for the cruise theater, build it, rehearse it and premiere it. Maybe my idea of producing a show from scratch is too heavily influenced by Spider-man: Turn off the dark and the stories from Glen Berger. But the main stage shows in CMU School of Drama takes about six months to produce. It is reasonable to expect bigger shows produced by Disney may take longer than that.
This was a really cool article to read since I actually worked on this project. Disney puts a lot of attention and care into everything they do. I only saw a small portion of this project, so I am somewhat surprised to see how big the whole project is. What was most impressive about Disney when they came to see the progress of the set was how specific they were about the details. It was very cool to see that they knew exactly what they wanted everything to look like and had the means the get everything to be exactly as they wanted. I was also surprised by how many people came to look at the progress and the various departments that were represented. Also, because everything was going on a ship and would be running in rep, the engineering had to be very specific since everything had to breakdown and store quite compactly.
The title of this article got me excited to learn about what exactly makes a production on a cruise different from one on land and some of the specific challenges cruise line shows face. This article however, answered none of my questions, it was simply a summary (if that) of a design process. One aspect of this article I found strange was the language used. For example, when describing the renderings or the drafting of the set design a "blueprint". I might be wrong, but I don't think this word is used interchangeably with "drafting" or "rendering". This makes me question who exactly is writing this article and what gives them the authority to do so. It is cool to hear that the same amount of work goes into cruise line shows, but something that I am really interested in learning more about are the ways they solve the specific problems that being on board a moving ship creates.
I am always surprised to see the attention to detail the Disney has. They continuously set the bar every time they complete a new project. Although I have never seen a Disney cruise show I can only imagine that is the same as seeing a show on land. It was interesting to hear about Drew’s experience with the production and his take on the project. A fascinating thing about Disney is they aren’t good at just one thing they are good at everything. The article puts it well, “physical elements of the show are constructed, including elaborate scenery, larger-than-life props, and stunning costumes.” I hope that I will get the opportunity to at least hear more about the show and the success that it has in the future. I also hope to learn more about the process that it takes to get a show like this off the ground and into the space.
I imagine that the process of putting on a show on a cruise is very similar to putting on a show on Broadway. The process might be a little longer since it is Disney and they have a lot of money to spend time on creating designs and really refining the show. The show needs to be able to stand the elements of moving around on a ship and the possibility for things to shift. This is probably figured out in the mechanics of how the set is built and with what materials. The costumes also need to be pretty durable and there needs to be a lot of supplies to fix them if something broke during the run. There probably is not a full costume shop on the ship and a whole team of people to fix the garments. There is also no fast way to take it to another shop because they are in the middle of the ocean in the Caribbean most likely. Some people often think of cruise shows to not be that great, but I think Disney is trying to change that by creating full scale productions and putting in a lot of time and effort.
This article is awful, it really doesn’t talk at all about how they actually go about designing. I really would have liked to hear more about the design of the “french provincial town where Beauty and the Beast takes place” and how they decided on the design. But all they talked about was how they spend two years planning and designing before the premier of the show. I understand that they highly technical elements may not be as accessible to the public, but I would like them to include some information about it. Hopefully over the next few weeks they expand more on what they began talking about in this article. I would also love to hear more about the workshops that they present before the show opens, and how that relates to the technical side of things.
I wish this article was longer! It feels so tantalizing to hear just that little bit about making a Disney show. Think about how nice it would be to start two years from when the show had to go up! There would be so much time to really make sure that the design elements all work together and the show is exactly what everyone wants it to be. There would not be that feeling of, “It’s not really what I wanted, but there’s no time to fix it now.”
I am curious what the backstage looks like on a cruise ship. I know they are huge boats, but there can’t be that much space devoted to a theatre. Where do they store the 500 garments, and all those huge props and puppets? I wonder how the show would change if it goes from being a cruise line show to Broadway. Is this a standard sequence- that the show is first on Broadway and then goes onto the Disney Cruise Line? Is the backstage area smaller in Broadway houses or on a boat? Would the emphasis of the show be different in the two different venues? How does size of the cast change? It would be so exciting to have this article span all varieties of Disney shows.
Not surprisingly, this article doesn’t really say much. It doesn’t go beyond anything that one would do or think of for any production. What makes this different is that it is on a boat. There’s nothing in the article to suggest they do anything different when mounting a production on a cruise ship rather than a brick and mortar venue. I know Disney doesn’t want to give away any of their secrets, but the could still say something about the challenges of working on a cruise ship. The part that does surprise me is that the show is Beauty and the Beast. That was popular when I was growing up, and perhaps it is timeless, but it seems like there are shows that would attract a younger audience. Although, people my age might now have children who are the prime Disney age. From that standpoint, it makes perfect sense to put Beauty and the Beast on a cruise ship.
I worked very briefly this summer with one of the new composers of this show and it was fascinating to hear hime talk about the process of working with disney and of working on the show. It is probably an impossible task for someone to reinvent disney because it is so known and loved, but this man seemed happy to try and excited to bring something new to the project. This article doesn't really give us much, as many of the "behind the scenes" articles tend to do. What is so interesting to me is that these articles tend to claim that they are for people on our side of the business but really they aren't because if they were they would be more interesting and detailed than that. I am curious to see how this version of the show will differ in every way. Obviously things will change because it is on a cruise ship and not on broadway, but technically I wonder what advancements have been made in the past 20 years that are going to change the way that the more interesting things happen in the show. I'm excited to see how this turns out, but I can't say Im excited to see it. Beauty and the Beast was my first Broadway show and I really don't like the idea of anyone else messing with it.
This is hilariously devoid of information. "We're going to take you BEHIND THE SCENES! Get an INSIDE LOOK at how DISNEY MAGIC is created!" ...and then they describe the basic theatrical process. I would personally be interested in hearing more about their workshopping process (Who takes part? Which segments of the company are represented for show quality control? How are they casted? Tell us about workshop stage managers, and how rehearsal stage managers install the show on the ship, etc.) Talk about the differences between the traditional theatre process and creating a show for a ship. What about the technical challenges of installing a set and lights in a theatre that travels across oceans? How is the Disney Cruiseline unique compared to other lines? What are they looking for, storywise? How do they take their difference in audience into account? There are so, so many questions that could have been answered in this article, but weren't. Step it up, Disney.
This article is highly underwhelming, it really covers nothing new that dos too us didn't know already. As Kat said, its a basic creative process. When I saw the title, I was curious as to how that process changes to fit a cruise line setting, but this article unfortunately just really covered none of that. This article is so surface level that for people like us it means nothing, for people that have no clue as to what a creative process for a show is this article is probably still not enough. The article is filed with flowery disney lingo, "Not even Cinderella’s mouse friends could keep up with the work of the costuming team", that just highlight a basic reality of costumes in a show. I want to know about the risk factors in doing theatre on a cruise ship, what has to change and what has to go. It's also a little weird that rather than recreating these stories for an actual theatre, they are doing doing it for a cruise, where people are primarily going for theatre, but its still not the worst idea. Overall, this word count on this article needs to go up a couple thousand in order for me to find anything of sustenance.
This was an underwhelming article. As someone working and studying theatre, this article gave very little new information. The only thing I learn was that for Disney cruise line the the process starts 2 years in advance. As someone who has working on cruise ships it would have been interesting to read about the adjustment Disney Theatrical has to over come to make it sea ready. They could have talked about the advancing in technology to help adapt to doing shows at high rough seas. Usually on these entertainment ships, there is more than one production happening in the same theatre. It would be interesting to know how they store all the different sets and props. More so how this fact effected the design process. Dose all the set have to be collapsible or some how convertible for each show. These are just a few question they could have answered “going behind the scenes” of a Disney ship theatre experience.
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