RW
As soon as you came off of PRINCE & THE PAUPER you stepped on to …

AD
ALADDIN

RW
As an assistant production manager?

AD
Production manager.

RW
So how did production management prepare you for producing?

AD
Well production managing for Ron and John is the greatest chance to get ready for producing because they were so great. I was in the room for all the writing meetings and all the story meetings. We didn’t have as many production people in those days. We were more skeletal, so the production managers spent a lot more time with the directors. That was really my education too. I really had a chance to sit at their feet and learn the creative process while I was managing the day-to-day inventory. That was such a coup for me to work with them.

RW
What sort of similarities did you find between that process and stage managing on a large musical stage play?

AD
It’s similar in that you have big milestones that you have to hit. For example: you say things like “Gee we have to have the characters designed by here because the animators are beginning.�? So you back up all your design meetings and hopefully you can generate enough time for people to do their process and find characters they’re happy with. Another example: Eric Goldberg on that project came on very, very early and was such a gift because he did a lot of animation tests for a lot of characters and really helped set some of the early designs and the Hirschfeld look of the movie, along with Ron and John of course. So that kind of thing, of knowing that you have to get you designs locked in as best you can before you actually hit the ground with production. Of course..gosh, Alan Menken. My first of three movies were with Alan Menken. We started out with Alan and Howard Ashman and of course they had worked on their own Aladdin version ahead of us taking it on so it was fun listening to those songs right from the get go. Of course a lot of them didn’t get used because Aladdin was no longer part of a gang of kids. The story took a big change. Anyway, Howard and Alan were part of that process and then of course Tim Rice became a friend and I worked with him again on THE LION KING.

So it felt very much like a theatre company, and I what I liked about it particularly was that with my repertory experience – at Hartford stage particularly – I got to work with a lot of designers over and over, and actors over and over, and directors like Mark Lamos over and over. So I was lucky then that I worked with Ron and John more than once and I’ve worked with Mark Henn three or four times and it feels like a rep company to me. The people just get recast and we find new sides of them. Andreas, too. He’s done both Scar and then Hercules, you know the leading man. And that’s been really fun for me to see these actors who can do so many things.

RW
Is there a moment that you can recall in your career as a stage manager where you felt like you were … how do I put this? That you were watching one particular actor or a particular performance one night where you were aware that were seeing something that was so electrifying that it stood out. Some performance where you found yourself thinking “This is extraordinary, and I’m watching something that I may never see again.�??

AD
Yeh. A lot of my experiences that were powerful for me were at Hartford, Connecticut. I did some Shakespeare there, some Ibsen there, a lot of the classics that were quite astonishing. But I think probably the play that as a whole experience in its entirety had the most effect on me was Les Miserables. Touring with Les Mis (sic) was an extraordinary experience because it’s a very grueling evening for singers. The range of it is pretty difficult – especially for the Valjean character. The wonderful thing about touring is that you get reviewed every two weeks and you have to remember where my dressing room is and where do I do that quick change, so I think that keeps the show a lot fresher for everybody. The lights are in different positions, and the acoustics are different, and for the performers it’s quite a challenge. But I remember one evening – do you remember when Tienamen Square happened in ’89? Well that was students standing up in Tianamen Square and saying “this isn’t okay with us�? and to have that show, that night when people were so tuned in to the power of the student voice and see the students take the barricades…it was unlike any performance of Les Mis we had before or after. The audience was just riveted. Pretty extraordinary.

RW
And looking back on your career in animation thus far, is there a performance or a scene or sequence that had a similar effect on you? The work of a particular artist or team that left you feeling as electrified? I’m not asking you to name a favorite or choose one over another, necessarily, but rather something that comes to mind that you still look back at and think “that was extraordinary�??

AD
You know there’s a couple of things that come to mind. Tony Fucile always takes my breath away. The animation of Mufasa is so stunning, and some of the subtleties between Mark Henn’s work on little Simba and Mufasa, the father-son relationship…it’s just some brilliant, brilliant work there. But a lot of my excitement about the work that I’ve done here at Disney has been music, because that’s my background. I distinctly remember the first day we got Hans Zimmer’s take in on “The Circle of Life�? and to hear what he was able to bring to that project along with Mark Mancina…that opened that whole movie up for us, and I think really was a big significant moment in the whole unbelievable life that that story has had. It was a tough movie, and that kind of a breakthrough really, really jump started us in a huge way. And HERCULES, an underrated movie in my opinion…