A Man Has Dreams Of Walking With Giants

To carve his niche in the edifice of time…

I’ve decided I’ll continue introducing the crew in future posts, but I’m going to break from that for now to share a story that happened almost a year ago, right before I knew that I was officially going to direct Mary Poppins. Jenny and I got to travel to Disneyland last May for a cast member preview of the new Star Wars: Galaxy’s Edge land. (My sister works in marketing for the company. Take advantage of those perks when you can right?) Well, Jenny had to come back early for work but I got to stay an extra two days, the last one of which I’d be checking out Disneyland ALONE. 

So what do you do when you have 18 hours to spend in Disneyland all by yourself? The answer is EVERYTHING! But for part of that time I also took the opportunity to go on the “Walking in Walt’s Footsteps” tour, in which a guide takes small groups on a walking tour around the park, telling the story of the creation of Disneyland and using the park itself along the way for talking and reference points. This was a perfect activity for me to do on my day alone, because any loved ones would be spared the embarrassment of seeing me geek out over all the little details I’d get to learn about. 

Disneyland is probably the Mecca, the Holy Land for Disney fanatics. Walt Disney used to wander this park checking in with people on any given day. You know the awkward manager at Chili’s that comes up to your table and asks “how was everything tonight?” Well, once upon a time that was Walt Disney himself at Disneyland. I think many people don’t even realize that Walt didn’t live to see Walt Disney World in Florida, he merely bought the land and started the planning for his "Florida Project". Disneyland is where you need to go if you want to (ahem) walk in Walt’s footsteps. 

And speaking of which, the tour was an incredible three hours, and a theme that kept coming up throughout it was Mary Poppins. For example, I learned that the New Orleans Square section of the park (home to Pirates of the Caribbean AND the Haunted Mansion) was bankrolled by the box office success from Mary Poppins! It is so funny and honestly a bit eye opening to think that just 55 years ago the Disney company was actually quaint enough that the profits of a successful film would be the source to fund the creation of a new land in the park. So if Mary Poppins had failed, would we not even have Pirates or the Mansion? It makes you wonder.

The tour was poignant and full of other interesting bits of trivia. We wore headsets to better hear our guide but also because the tour was enhanced with music and other related soundbites. My favorite part came towards the end, when our group gathered in the Main Street Opera House where our tour guide (who was new to the gig so his spiel was a bit rehearsed, but he was still great) told us all about Walt’s creative vision. He really stressed the importance of the people Walt surrounded himself with like his brother Roy, the “financial guy” of the operation who worried about budgets and such so Walt didn’t have to. There was also constant support from his wife Lillian, the one credited with actually naming Mickey Mouse, not to mention all the artists and talent Walt surrounded himself with to make all his big ideas into reality. It made me think of the people I like to surround myself with when creating a production. You can’t do it alone, and the best people support you, challenge you, and inspire you to be your best (and you in turn inspire and motivate them). Just as I was so moved by this speech and how it pertained to my own life and endeavors, our guide said “now let’s listen to Walt’s favorite song as we walk across Main Street for one last surprise”.

And then “Feed the Birds” starts to play into our headsets. We step into the sunlight, onto the original Main Street USA. The weather is PERFECT. To my left, I see kids meeting Pluto and Mickey. I turn to my right and glance at the ORIGINAL castle at the end of Main Street, the one I always saw on those old Disney programs from the 1960’s. Every other noise in the world is canceled out by Julie Andrews’ voice singing in our ears. It was the most surreal, most awesome sensation. And here I am, nine months after this happened, still chilled by it and I still don’t know how I kept it together and didn’t totally fall apart emotionally!

Once we reached the Main Street Fire House, our tour guide says “our last surprise for today is that we are going to visit Walt’s apartment.” And we got to see the small private quarters where Walt stayed when at Disneyland, which is not open to the public and isn’t even always included on this tour. How lucky we were! I got to see up close the lamp they always leave on in the window as a tribute to the creator of Disneyland. As we left the apartment and I was still reeling from the experience, my first thought  was “wow, now I REALLY hope I’m going to direct Mary Poppins.” (At this point in time, it was still a “pending submission”.)

Our tour concluded (appropriately enough) with lunch from the Jolly Holiday Cafe at the end of Main Street USA and we got a really nice collectible pin as a souvenir from the experience. Not long after I returned home from this trip, I got the official word that I was indeed going to direct this show that means so much to so many and now meant even a little bit more to me. 

Now as I write this, auditions are in 89 days!  I’ll continue highlighting the crew and talking more about auditions in future posts! Thanks for indulging my little story time.