Word: disneyism
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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...when Graceland opened its doors for tours in 1982 at $5 a head. Today the mansion has some 750,000 visitors a year and generates revenues in excess of $20 million. Meanwhile, EPE has steadily bought up much of the adjoining land, clearing the way for the sort of Disney-like development (without the rides) Priscilla and Soden have long dreamed of, including convention hotels and a high-tech Elvis museum...
...movie I would work on was a Disney film starring Richard Dreyfus and a six-foot-tall, beautiful blond, who both spent a good portion of the movie in black face and tribal garb. It had a shaky story line, a $30 million budget--modest as major studio productions go--and was filming initially in a warehouse in a deserted industrial area of Los Angeles. One of the priorities of a production assistant such as myself was to keep the set clear of interlopers and silent while filming. This included asking a variety of passers-by to reroute and walk...
None of this fazes Taymor. "I told them I wanted to go for elegance, not cute," she says. "The Lion King is a very commercial work, but what they've let me do is very experimental. I was totally delighted and surprised." Tom Schumacher, Disney's executive vice president of theatrical productions, first encountered Taymor when he was a producer for the 1984 Olympics Arts Festival, where he hoped to put on a musical she had co-written. That didn't work out, but a decade later--after Taymor had won acclaim for her presentations of opera (Oedipus Rex), children...
...built some prototype puppets out of cardboard, showed them to Disney executives--including chairman Michael Eisner--and got the job. She not only directs the show but has also designed the costumes and (with Michael Curry) the masks and puppets. The Disney folks scoff at the notion that she was a risky choice. "I don't think the Julie part is the risk," says Peter Schneider, president of Disney animation and theatrical productions. "Putting The Lion King onstage is the risk." Schneider and Schumacher have both been looking over Taymor's shoulder in Minneapolis, watching rehearsals and consulting with...
Taymor and the Disney executives admit that tensions were high before the first preview, which was attended by Eisner, on July 8, but they were greatly relieved when the show came off without a major hitch and drew an enthusiastic response from the audience. Theatergoers continue to burst into applause at least half a dozen times each night when they first glimpse Taymor's startling designs. Indeed, though the show has a way to go before it is ready for Broadway (some pruning of its 2-hr. 45-min. length would help), it is an ingenious and sometimes thrilling piece...