It’s a Theatrical World, After All

Broadway is big business in Burbank.

It might seem an unlikely site to compete with London and New York as Theater Central, yet this is where some of the strongest-selling musical theater productions in recent history have been conceived and nurtured into global operations.

The vast, dense Walt Disney Co. lot revolves around a movie studio, television network and theme-park headquarters. But with the presence on Broadway of “Beauty and the Beast,” “The Lion King” and now “Aida,” the corporate face of Disney also is taking the place once held by such impresarios as David Merrick, the Shuberts and Cameron Mackintosh.

Musical theater--unlike movies, which tend to have a limited shelf life--has the potential to be evergreen and therefore extremely lucrative, as Andrew Lloyd Webber proved with the 17-year Broadway run of “Cats,” said to have brought in billions.

Still, Disney’s interest in theater may also be due in large part to the fact that people who know and love theater are running the show. Disney Chairman Michael Eisner grew up going to Broadway, and he’s put two top studio executives who cut their teeth on the boards in charge of the company’s theatrical division--Peter Schneider, chairman of Walt Disney Studios, and Thomas Schumacher, president of the company’s feature and television animation departments.

Under Schneider and Schumacher, whose guidance of Disney’s theatrical division began with the creation of the stage production of “The Lion King,” the company has taken risks. Not only has it hired some of the biggest and most provocative names in the performing arts to create new works, it has successfully and creatively marketed them under the potent Disney name with skills honed in other realms.

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Disney’s first show was “Beauty and the Beast,” which opened in 1994. Since then, the enterprise has grown exponentially. When “The Lion King” premieres at the Pantages Theatre in Hollywood on Oct. 19, there will be six standing productions of that show and three of “Beauty” plus a national tour. “Aida” currently dominates the heart of Times Square, and there’s also a single production, in German, of “The Hunchback of Notre Dame,” which opened in June 1999 in Berlin. Another half a dozen new works are in various stages of development.

Disney won’t disclose financial matters, but company officials say the 90-person theatrical division, a unit of Disney Studios, is making money--or they wouldn’t be doing it. Sources within the show confirm that “The Lion King” has already recouped its investment on Broadway, even though the show is estimated to have cost between $20 million and $25 million to mount, and is expensive to run. Bringing in nearly $1 million a week, “Lion King” has been mostly standing room only since it opened in November 1997, leading Broadway grosses. “Aida” is second, and “Beauty and the Beast” has been playing solidly since it premiered in New York six years ago.

When the Los Angeles production of “The Lion King” opened its box office at the Pantages in May, first-day sales reached $3.7 million. Although officials won’t say how much they’ve taken in since, one source close to the show joked that it is “so much money, you can’t even imagine.”

“In the entertainment business it’s feast or famine,” says Eisner in a conversation in his office. “But it’s a blockbuster business, and [on stage] we’ve had two blockbusters, and maybe a third, in ‘Aida,’ and the success has been monumental both critically and very nice financially. So even though we’re a very big company, and there are other things that make more money on an ongoing basis, this has been very good for the Disney brand.”

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Theater may be big business in Burbank, but it’s also a passion for the people running it.

What did studio chief Schneider do on a Sunday afternoon in late August, right after getting off the plane from vacation? He went to Hollywood Boulevard to check in on a rehearsal for the new production of “The Lion King.” He says he just wanted to meet some cast members he didn’t know and talk to the resident director. While he was there, he helped solve a problem for one of the puppet masters.

What does animation chief Schumacher do every chance he gets, wherever he travels? He goes to the theater to see new work. Ask him, he’s seen everything. He even serves on the board of the Rachel Rosenthal company.

What did Eisner do when he had a free evening in Denver recently? He stopped in to see the touring production of “Beauty and the Beast,” even though he says he’s seen it hundreds of times. He just likes the buzz.

Schumacher, Schneider and Eisner certainly spend more time on other enterprises: the recent unrolling of “Remember the Titans.” Building the California Adventure theme park, set to open in Anaheim in February. The release of “Dinosaur” in Europe last month, or the holiday releases here of “102 Dalmatians,” “Unbreakable” and “The Emperor’s New Groove.”

Yet all three men have roots in the world of theater. Eisner, 58, majored in theater and English at Denison University in Granville, Ohio, and wrote a few plays thereafter, once hoping to become the next Eugene O’Neill or Arthur Miller, he says. Schneider, 49, had a fruitful career managing the St. Nicholas Theater in Chicago, directed in London and New York, and was an associate director of the 1984 Olympic Arts Festival in L.A. before moving to Disney in 1985 as a vice president in animation. Schumacher, 42, served on the staff of the Mark Taper Forum, worked for Schneider at the Olympic festival, and was a co-founder and associate director of 1987’s multifaceted, multicultural Los Angeles Festival of the Arts, where he was first to bring Cirque du Soleil to this country.

Board Vice Chairman Roy Disney hired Schneider to help him revamp the company’s then-moribund animation department. Schneider is known for investing in new technology, and he was a player in making films such as “Beauty and the Beast” “The Little Mermaid,” “The Lion King” “Toy Story,” “Tarzan” and others that took Disney’s use of animation to new heights. Along the way, Schneider restructured the department according to a theater model, hiring a roster of professionals from that world, including Schumacher.

“When you look at animation, you can break it down into the exact same thing as theater,” Schneider explains in a conversation with Schumacher in his office in the Team Disney building on the lot. “There’s a set department, there’s a costume department . . . it’s very much in the mind-set of running a resident theater company, which Tom and I are very associated with. You have the resident actors--the animators. A resident scene shop--background. A lighting shop--effects. It doesn’t always translate, but there are strong parallels, and the development process of workshopping and rewriting with in-house writers is very much like the theater.”

Completing the thought, as the two have a tendency to do for one another, Schumacher adds: “Animation and theater, because they’re iterative, you get each new iteration and you get to change them. That’s less true of live-action films. Both theater and animation require looking at pieces and being able to evaluate them in their non-finished form.”

Adds Schneider, “You can see enough of it to say, this is not going to work. In both animation and theater, we get to look at it again and again. The ability to change, not because it’s wrong, but to make it better, is the essence of the process.”

“The other thing,” Schneider adds, “and what I’m very conscious of now is that we have the financial resources, and the support of those financial resources. When we started with [lyricist] Howard Ashman and [composer] Alan Menken on ‘Little Mermaid,’ we had enough money to do the iterative process. And as much as Tom and I kicked ourselves as we kept putting it up and throwing it out, and putting it up and throwing it out and saying to ourselves, ‘My God, think how much money we’re spending,’ we came to the conclusion that it’s the only way.”

It is a philosophy they are applying to theater as well.

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“The Lion King” is the jewel in Disney’s theatrical crown, and much of the credit for its success goes to the choice of Julie Taymor, now 47, as director.

As Eisner tells the story, when the animated film of “The Lion King” became the biggest hit Disney had ever had, the stage adaptation of “Beauty and the Beast” was taking another hot property even further. So, putting “Lion King” on stage seemed obvious.

“I was walking to lunch one day, and I said to Peter Schneider [then head of Disney animation], ‘we should do “Lion King” on Broadway, and he said, ‘That really is going to be difficult.’ I said, ‘Fine, if you don’t want to do it, I’m going to do it myself. I’ll find somebody else to do it.’ About two weeks later, Peter or Tom [Schumacher] called me and said, ‘Julie Taymor,’ and I said, ‘Sounds interesting, but here are the rules: Use ‘The Lion King’ music and ‘Lion King’ basic story, and anything that’s created from that, I’m OK with. But let’s do a presentation.’ ”

Schumacher tells only a slightly different version of the same story. “Michael Eisner told us, ‘We need to do “The Lion King” for the stage.’ I said, ‘That’s the worst idea I’ve ever heard. It won’t work.’ Michael said, ‘You don’t understand. We’re doing “Lion King.” ’ “

Schumacher couldn’t imagine how the vast African landscape and the herds of animals that inhabit the movie’s Pride Lands could translate into traditional musical theater, which is what he thought Eisner wanted. Still, the challenge was there. And he thought of Taymor, whom he had once hoped to produce during his L.A. Festival days. Long known in the world of avant-garde theater and opera, she was not an obvious choice when the idea first arose of adapting the film for the stage. But Schumacher thought of her inventive staging, multicultural influences, and, in particular, her use of oversized masks and puppets.

So he called her.

When Taymor got the call she was in St. Petersburg, Russia, directing a production of “Salome,” conducted by the Russian rising star Valery Gergiev, at the Kirov Opera’s Marinsky Theater. Disney was certainly not a company she was looking to for her next commission. She’d also never seen the movie “The Lion King,” and her next project was to direct a new production of Wagner’s “The Flying Dutchman” for Los Angeles Opera.

Schumacher sent Taymor a video of the movie and the album of “Rhythm of the Pride Lands.” The latter was spun off from “The Lion King” with songs from the film by Elton John and Tim Rice, as well as additional music by Lebo M, Mark Mancina and Hans Zimmer, all of whom had participated in the film. Taymor responded to the African sounds, the spirit of the story, and she signed on--somewhat tentatively.

Schumacher gave her no limits, Taymor recalls during an interview at a Beverly Hills hotel, where she is staying during the final weeks of mounting the L.A. version of “The Lion King.” He just encouraged her to be creative.

She says she wasn’t even told of Eisner’s guidelines, although when she attempted significant rewrites of the story, the producers did rein her in.

Several workshops ensued, first one just talking about the book, then another with white models of some of the puppets. “I’m the only one who knew that they could work,” she says of the second workshop. “No one else was convinced. And I don’t blame them; the figures were just 5 feet away from the audience, it was broad daylight, we hadn’t finessed it, and the actors hadn’t had rehearsal time. So we did a second workshop, for which I made the stipulation that it had to be in the theater, with a black environment and lights. I investigated three ways of doing each character, and a limited number of people were allowed to come. Peter, Tom, Michael Eisner.”

This time it worked. “The things that we decided to do were all the most extreme things,” Taymor says. “Michael said something I will always remember, and not everybody would say: ‘It’s going to be the most risky, but the payoff will be bigger if it works.’ ”

Taymor created elaborate costumes and/or puppets for everyone--elephants, gazelles, giraffes, zebras and, of course, lions. Early on, she envisioned a menagerie parading through the audience in the opening number, creating an evocation of the jungle with oversized dimensions. She developed elaborate effects, but there is no mystery to the method. Taymor decided that the mechanics should always be clearly revealed.

Her philosophy was simple: Find the simple ideograph in every component. Allow audiences to use their imaginations as they watch the show. “Audiences in the theater know it’s not real,” Taymor says. “But they come to the theater ready to believe.”

When the show opened in Minneapolis in summer 1997, there were still glitches: actors who hadn’t mastered the acrobatics of the costumes, a stampede image that required stopping the show to set it up.

Taymor did get some plot changes in--she made the shaman Rafiki female instead of male. She enhanced the role of Nala, and made the African flavor of the music more prominent with the help of Lebo M and Mancina.

The stage show also looked nothing like the movie.

“My first reaction when I saw it in Minneapolis was ‘Thank God we solved all the problems in the movie,’ ” recalls Roy Disney, who oversees all feature animation. “There were huge problems that never got fixed, particularly the whole adventure when Simba leaves Pride Rock and goes off on his own, and then finally Nala finds him and they come back. We made it make sense in the play. I thought, ‘Oh, this is a new world, where you can go back and fix a movie later!’ ”

The critics raved. Disney was pretty sure it had a hit in hand in Minneapolis, but laid low. Broadway can be inhospitable to shows that appeal on the road. As Garth Drabinsky poured on the hype about his new show, “Ragtime,” the Disney Co. simultaneously let the buzz grow on its future blockbuster. Six Tonys later, including best musical and best director for Taymor (the first for a woman), the strategy seems to have worked.

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Juggling film work and theater takes coordination, professional staff and technology.

In the Disney hands-on collaborative style (also known as control mania), Schneider and Schumacher watch every aspect of their divisions closely. Be it animation teams or weekly theater marketing meetings, team members in London, Burbank and New York or wherever all link up regularly to share ideas and images. State-of-the-art videoconferencing equipment makes possible the global, multi-tasking nature of their lives.

And even though Schneider is focused primarily on live action, while Schumacher is sticking to animation, the pair work as one on theater projects. Somewhat different in style--pressed to characterize them, Roy Disney says with a laugh, “I think Tom [Schumacher] is probably a little more Noel Coward to Peter [Schneider’s] Mark Twain”--they are nevertheless unable, or unwilling, to delineate their theater producing responsibilities.

“This question is commonly asked but difficult to answer,” Schumacher says. “After working together and knowing each other for so many years, we have a clear sense of how we share responsibilities. Our staffs have a sense of it, but I don’t think there is a way to articulate it.”

Schneider’s strength, some say, leans toward inventive marketing. Schumacher may be more artistically inclined, but both talk equally comfortably on either subject.

Helping them guide the theater operation are Stuart Oken, who oversees the day-to-day creative development of all Disney’s theater projects, and Alan Levey, the general manager who supervises the business side. Ideas, for the most part, are generated in-house, and artists are hired to develop them.

Taymor is developing a new production of “Pinocchio” with frequent collaborator composer Elliot Goldenthal and writer Robert Coover (author of “Pinocchio in Venice”), and Matthew Bourne (Tony winner for direction and choreography of “Swan Lake”) is working with his company, Adventures in Motion Pictures, on adapting “The Little Mermaid” for the stage. Dancer-choreographer Savion Glover is developing “Hoopz,” a story about black basketball, and theater director Tina Landau also has an unnamed project in the works. And these are only the ones they’re talking about.

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Because of their history in theater, both Schumacher and Schneider know what they’re asking when they call upon an artist.

When an unsuccessful tryout in Atlanta of “Aida” meant jettisoning the creative team, they called Robert Falls, artistic director of Chicago’s Goodman Theatre, who was already working on another project for them, the nature of which they won’t reveal. Falls was in rehearsal for the Broadway revival of Arthur Miller’s “Death of a Salesman” (now at the Ahmanson Theatre).

Elton John and Tim Rice’s musical “Aida” eventually opened to barbs in New York (it fared better in the national press), but Falls speaks in superlatives about his experience working with Disney.

“I would say it was one of the best relationships I’ve ever had in the theater working with producers,” says Falls, who had never directed a Broadway musical.

He believes that some of the criticism of the show was backlash against Disney’s corporate presence on Broadway.

“They say when you come into the company that you’re going to be wearing a big target on your chest. I was amazed at the negativity surrounding the experience from the press; the attitude of ‘Disneyfication.’ I found that it was just about putting on a show. It was just about work that people were passionate about. They brought this piece to me, I liked it, they gave me absolute artistic control over the project, and then they were really passionate producers all the way down the line.”

Falls quickly brought on playwright David Henry Hwang (“M. Butterfly,” “Golden Child”) to work on the book for “Aida.” Hwang says that while he understands the New York theatrical community’s wariness of the company, he found the experience to be much like any other theater experience, and the idea of working on a production with Elton John appealed to him.

“The important thing is that when I first began thinking about doing this, I really liked the score. And then for someone of my generation, the opportunity to collaborate with him was pretty thrilling. We all grew up with Elton John. I think the first album that I ever owned was ‘Madman Across the Water.’ ”

Still, the criticism of Disney’s role on Broadway persists among some theater professionals, among them Robert Brustein, artistic director of Harvard’s American Repertory Theatre and a writer for the New Republic. Having worked with Taymor early in her career, Brustein went to see “The Lion King.”

“I was extremely impressed by the visual spectacle,” he said in a phone interview from Cambridge. “But ultimately I felt empty. What it’s about is essentially kitsch.”

Brustein doesn’t blame only Disney. “It just seems as though Broadway is just for foreign businessmen, out-of-town tourists and 10-year-olds,” Brustein says. “It has lost its serious audience.” And he offers a challenge: “Now that they’ve made so much money on ‘Lion King,’ they should have Julie Taymor do ‘Titus Andronicus,’ which she did very well on film. They should put that on Broadway.”

Responding to the comments, Taymor defends “The Lion King.”

“Maybe I’m brainwashed by my own involvement in it, but I don’t agree with him about the material. I’m not saying that it’s Shakespeare, who is my fondest companion, writer, collaborator,” she says. “On the other hand, “Lion King” deals with a major theme that all ritual theater deals with forever. It’s about responsibility to your environment, to your community. That’s not a shallow theme. Nor is the prodigal son story. Maybe it’s not done in the deepest, darkest way, but that has a lot to do with bringing the children into the theater community.”

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Disney may have raised the bar for Hollywood’s involvement in theater, but it is certainly not the first studio to invest in the field. Others have backed shows off and on, often in order to lay claim to properties that might later become films. Perhaps at least in part as a result of Disney’s success, others in Hollywood are testing the waters now.

Universal Studios is taking the traditional route, as a backer of “Seussical,” the Dr. Seuss-inspired musical opening on Broadway next month. Fox Searchlight is behind the Broadway adaptation of “The Full Monty,” a reworking of the 1997 box-office blockbuster.

Warner Bros. is developing a musical, “Batman,” with book by playwright David Ives (“All in the Timing”) and music by Jim Steinman, writer and producer of the 1997 Meat Loaf album, “Bat Out of Hell.” Gregg Maday, a Warner senior vice president and a former theater professional, said the studio has been working on the project for about two years, and he expects to get a draft of the book and music by early next month. From there, it will be evaluated and workshops should follow. Maday, who also works on movies and miniseries for Warner, said the studio’s involvement in theater is “embryonic,” but if “Batman” works, it could hold promise for the future.

Still, among its Hollywood colleagues, Disney is the monolithic presence, and bringing “Lion King” to Hollywood is a homecoming.

The L.A. production at the Pantages, which theater owner James M. Nederlander has overhauled at a cost of $10 million, will feature John Vickery reprising the role of Scar, which he originated on Broadway. Danny Rutigliano, who recently played Timon on Broadway, is also coming to Los Angeles. But most of the cast will be new, and most are unknowns.

That doesn’t mean it will differ from the productions in New York, London and Toronto, or even the two productions in Japan. Choreographer Garth Fagan and Taymor have worked with all of the actors and dancers to be sure they have the correct tone. The African costumes are still hand-printed and beaded in all the finery of the original. And a close look at the masks reveals details intended only to give the actors a sense of authenticity.

On Scar’s mask, for example, the gums are receding around his snarling teeth. Who will see that? Who would know? Vickery? The cast? Certainly not the audience. It is the kind of attention to the most minor point that has the potential of turning the mundane into magic.

And it’s just the kind of minor detail that is business as usual at Disney. *

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“The Lion King” is currently in previews and opens Oct. 19, continuing through June 30, at the Pantages Theatre, 6233 Hollywood Blvd. Tuesday-Saturday, 8 p.m.; Saturday, 2 p.m.; Sunday, 1 and 6:30 p.m. Occasional Wednesday matinees at 2 p.m. $12-$127. Ticketmaster: (213) 365-5555; (714) 702-2510.