It will be interesting to see how this all plays out for Disney.
I don't have the same love for Disney that I used to have since its paradigm shift to a corporate mentality.
I worked for the park as a CM from the early 80s to early 90s and was there to see the transition up close and personal.
When Disney moved into Broadway I knew it would be a genius move though. Tap in to the youth market with products that were already ready-made. You already had the story because the movie had already been made. You already had the music. Everything was already in play. All you had to do was take the mini-productions that were playing at the theme parks and plus them to Broadway standards. You have the billions of dollars it takes to have the best costumes and sets, as well as the connections to make great strides in stage tech and effects. Voila. A no-brainer.
While I'm still a Disney fan at the core (at least in the "philosophy of Walt" camp), I don't go overly crazy for Disney on Broadway. With all the oohs and aahs their shows get.....well, they should. They have the billions of dollars to buy those oohs and aahs. So for me their success is neither a surprise nor does it engage this wow factor for me when I see one of their shows that it does for others.
I've now seen The Lion King, Mary Poppins, Aladdin, and Frozen. Largely because I was either being taken to the show for my birthday or a friend wanted to see the show so I went with. Were they good? Absolutely. But having seen Aladdin and Frozen at the Disney parks, they were really good too. What I was seeing on Broadway was just the heavily plussed versions that Disney has the billions to produce.
Being of the Walt camp, I'm glad that Disney's ventures onto Broadway have created some real theater lovers in our youth. I've heard some well-known Broadway performers say such things as the first Broadway show they saw was BATB or TLK. So, good to that.
As to the leaders of Disney corporate who made that happen....part of me says, kudos to them....since they were the ones to make it happen. But the other side know that it was strictly a $$$ decision, and not just some nice attempt to bring theater to kids. The latter would have been Walt's reasoning. The former, not so much. I saw that paradigm shift in the changing of the guard in the mid 80s.
Now, was Walt against making money? No. But he saw it as a means to an end. It allowed him to do the things he wanted with his parks, and with his TV/movie product. I never saw it as being a "control the entertainment world" venture when it came to Walt. Which is what present Disney is about.
Regardless of the motivating factors though, it has brought kids to Broadway and has allowed them an outlet to see live theater. And this is good. I will still continue to have my opinions of the new "Disney" though.
One thing is for certain, I have no doubt that the latest news on COVID, and its relationship to kids, wasn't what BI wanted to wake up to read. Disney has the deepest pockets on Broadway, but even the deepest pockets will be impacted by something of this pandemic nature. That's to be sure. Especially when your entire product is based on entertainment, be it a theme park, a movie or a Broadway show. And if our kids are sadly being impacted by some new strain, or whatever, this means that the doors of theme parks, movie houses and theaters will have to stay closed even longer than expected.
And that's not good for Disney. Even with their deep pockets.
Frozen is closing? That's a shame. It puts actors and others related to the production out work. And that is never a good thing. I feel for them.
But corporate at Disney knows what they're doing.
