Born in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, Alice Dewey Goldstone began her career as a teacher. She taught Junior High School English and drama before beginning a career in theatre as a stage manager. Here theatrical credits include some of the most notable and highly regarded regional theatre companies in America, including Milwaukee Rep, Manhattan Theatre Club, Dallas Summer Musicals and Hartford Stage Company. HOME ON THE RANGE - a project on which she has spent six of her fifteen years at Disney - will gallop into theatres on this Friday, April 2nd.

When I asked Don Hahn - the most prolific and honored Disney animation producer - what it was that made Ms. Goldstone particularly unique among animation producers he responded “Alice is one of those rare people who understands and can balance the demands of the story, the production, the directors, the studio, the budget, the songwriters, and the schedule, all over a marathon period of time, and all while keeping her sense of humor. It's a very special gift!�? I sat down earlier this month to talk with Alice Dewey Goldstone to learn what brought this Milwaukee raised and New York forged animation wrangler to this critical juncture in both her career and the history of American animated film making.

Alice possesses both an inviting and commanding presence that make me believe she was, earlier in her career, the kind of teacher that everyone wanted to have, but that everyone knew was as tough and demanding as she was inspiring and nurturing. She has a critical way of listening to the questions, and a unique way of responding to them that had me spending much of the rest of the afternoon feeling as if I was leaving with an assignment … I couldn’t pinpoint what it was I was expected to do, mind you, but by gosh I was charged to do it! I have to confess that having grown up in an educator’s household, and having been in pathetic need of no-nonsense stage managers when I was directing in New York, when I first caught sight of Alice at our meeting I felt like a lost hiker being rescued from the woods by the most efficient and friendly border collie imaginable; bright, beautiful, confident and casual. I’m still not sure which of us cleared the path for the conversation, but I am certain it was everything I needed to find my way out of the woods and understand exactly what makes a truly great producer.

RHETT WICKHAM
Going back to your roots in theatre, how did your work as a stage manager prepare you for animation?

ALICE DEWEY-GOLDSTONE
It’s a tie in as a process. One of the reasons I say that is that people in theatre, I think, are very sensitive to new works. That was one thing that I had a lot of experience with was new writers and new directors and new designers and new composers and lyricists. I like the musical format. For me it was a very natural transition from doing musicals in New York to doing musicals here. I had seen THE LITTLE MERMAID and it knocked me out. I thought “My gosh, this is better than anything I’ve seen in New York this season!�?

RW
I still think of it as being the best structured book for any of the Disney animated musicals.

AD
It was a great collaboration all the way around, that project, wasn’t it? So that was kind of what enticed me to come here was seeing that movie. And also, my husband works in live action so I know a bit about how they work, although I’ve never done it, and it seems to me that it’s set up much more like attacking the location. (she laughs and shrugs slightly) You have no time to rehearse for the most part unless you work with Mike Nichols or somebody who has a big theatre background and really cares to work with actors in a more detailed way. It seems like you come in and you have to get your shots and get out by the end of the day and the sun and the location scout and …you know (sigh) It’s so complex! Then maybe, if you’re a big budget movie, you can do re-shoots later if you need to. But, since we start with a cut of the movie before we do production it’s such a different way of thinking. The rhythms of it – where the songs fall and where all the key moments are - are really mapped out in such an articulate way. I think some directors in live action do that as well, but probably not as many as with animation. Then as you come in to it and you keep honing, because it takes so darn long that you have the time to keep honing it, which is a good thing. So for me, seeing a scene in story boards and on the page and then in recordings and then in animation and then in clean-ups and then effects and then in color….you revisit these sections so many times it’s just like putting on a play. You’re at the table, you get them on their feet, you get into the production elements…it’s the same darn thing. And of course on the road you’re constantly trying to find new ways to keep it interesting. So for me, that felt like what I knew - this iterative, continually improving process. And having been on this picture for the past six years (laughing) we have honed it. We have honed it!! And I’m so proud of this movie and the little fire that has kept it going and gotten it to where it is. It’s a film that I think people will really enjoy.

RW
You started as an assistant production manager on THE PRINCE AND THE PAUPER, is that right?

AD
Yeah.

RW
How did you come to that position.

AD
Well, Maureen Donnelly was someone I knew from New York. She was a stage manager as well and she had made the transition here and so I gave her a call and I said “Wow this is an exciting process.�? In fact the week I got ahold of here was Oscar week and they had won some of the music awards. So we had a meeting and I started working shortly thereafter. That was a great experience, because PRINCE & THE PAUPER was pretty far along when I started on it and they kind of needed just one more person to help get it in the can, so I got to go from department to department as people wrapped up. And it was the best way to learn from the ground up how these things are put together. And it was a cel project, and I got to work on Mickey as my intro, with And Andreas and Dale Baer !