Disney Concerts will honor the 100th Anniversary of Walt Disney Animation Studios through a 2-night event at The Hollywood Bowl this weekend, August 4th and 5th. Walt Disney Animation Studios: The Concert is sure to be a night no Disney music fan will soon forget, and it’s being co-hosted by two memorable vocal talents, Susan Egan (Megara in Hercules) and Adassa (Dolores in Encanto). Ahead of the big event, I had the honor of speaking with Susan Egan about how the concert event came together, what she’s most looking forward to, and the origins of her own Disney fandom.
(Disney)
Benji: Walt Disney Animation Studios: The Concert is just a couple of days away. How are you feeling?
Susan Egan: We're feeling great. We just finished our first rehearsal with the orchestra, which is always a thrilling moment to hear 85 pieces playing these movie scores, which you're used to hearing on a recording, and to hear it live is spectacular.
Benji: You’re no stranger to performing on stage, in both theater and concert settings, but playing The Hollywood Bowl is a big deal. And this isn’t just any Disney concert, it’s an event celebrating 100 years of Disney Animation history. Are you nervous at all?
Susan Egan: Okay, so you're going to make me freak out if you keep speaking like that. No, it's a really funny thing, but it is actually making your Broadway debut where you're aware of it, but you can't focus on it. You focus on the work because you want to do a really good job because sometimes, if you step back too far, it is a little overwhelming. This is my fifth show at the Bowl, so I've had a little bit of experience doing it, but it's a lot of our cast's Bowl debuts, and it's kind of an amazing thing because it feels very full circle. Walt Disney himself had season tickets to the Bowl. And in fact, he was at The Bowl 85 years ago when he first heard the music of Paul Dukas, which is what inspired him to create The Sorcerer's Apprentice. And so you feel like, oh, a hundred years of Disney, it belongs at The Bowl. It's a hometown success story.
Benji: I had the pleasure of seeing Disney Princess: The Concert several times in different cities and this concert includes some of your collaborators from that show. How did your involvement in this production come to be?
Susan Egan: The whole Disney Princess thing was just a crazy assemblage of coincidences and hard work and a lot of things. We co-created Disney Princess: The Concert with Disney Concerts, my little company, and my producing team, we just love everybody at Disney Concerts. We really have a great time, and we produce well together, and we so enjoy the Disney Princess concert. We're about to announce some exciting news for that concert, so stay tuned till next month. But when this opportunity came up with The Bowl, we really looked at it as a hundred years of Disney Animation. Well, 40% of that are the princess characters, and so it made sense for us to start with the kernel of the princess show and then expand it out and bring in Peter Pan and Pinocchio and our heroes of Hercules and Hunchback and all these other wonderful films. So we did build it on onto princesses, but it is huge and glorious, and we've expanded the cast. We've got seven members in this cast, and all big Broadway stars. And, of course, Adassa from Encanto is really thrilling to have her on stage with us.
Benji: One thing that makes Disney Animation Studios unique is that it's entire history started with sound. That's what made Mickey Mouse an overnight success. How do you take a hundred years of Disney music and distill it down into one show?
Susan Egan: Yes, that's a great question. We could play eight shows that are totally different in eight nights, and still not cover all of the music from the last hundred years. But what is so fascinating about it is as we were writing the show and doing a lot of research, just understanding how innovative Walt Disney and Roy Disney were in creating this genre of feature animation. It was unheard of. Nobody knew if people would take cartoons seriously longer than an eight-minute short. And so in addition to expanding it to 83 minutes with Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, it was also the first time we saw [realistic] human forms as cartoons in animation. And to answer your question, it was the first time music was used to drive the story forward, music to emit emotions as opposed to just the vaudeville style of music, which is what cartoons were using prior to Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs. So we take it for granted today that music is an integral part of the story, but that was Walt Disney's idea. Isn't that phenomenal? I mean, it's crazy.
Benji: Without spoiling anything, what are you most excited for the thousands of people that will be in the audience at The Bowl to experience over the two nights?
Susan Egan: It's a couple of things. First of all, doing a show under the stars at The Hollywood Bowl is always a thrill. Having the stars on stage and then having the great star, which is this animation, which is going to be on these big screens surrounding everybody, I think what people are going to feel is what I felt just now listening and watching the animation and listening to the overture of the LA Phil with Thomas Wilkins conducting. I got really emotional. You forget how much music it is. And you'll see just a little spot of Dumbo with his ears covering his face or Pinocchio dancing with the other marionettes, and there's something about Disney that just is nostalgic and pulls you to your childhood and how it has been a part of childhoods for generations. I mean, it's something that really brings people together. Everybody has a memory that's associated with a Disney animated feature, and this is a culmination of that.
Benji: You’ll be joined on stage by fellow Disney luminaries, including Anneliese Van Der Pol and James Monroe Igleheart. What do your fellow castmates bring to this performance?
Susan Egan: It's so funny because, yeah, we all have these crazy Disney credits, but we are also innately fans of the material. James was wearing sweats today at rehearsal with Mickey Mouse all over them… Adassa is just like, "I always wanted to work for Disney, but I thought it would be as a tour guide in the park." She's like, "I never knew I would be a voice." So what's beautiful about these people is they're immensely talented. You will never hear this music sung the way you're going to hear it sung in this concert. But at the same time, their hearts are still so childlike, and the joy is real, and it's infectious. We are a bunch of people who not only get to make our living doing this, but appreciate the fact that we get to do this. We are all living our dreams, and that's what Disney is all about. “When You Wish Upon a Star,” and here we are. I mean, it's a pinch-me moment.
Benji: The concert is backed by not only The Walt Disney Company but also the Diane and Ron Miller Charitable Fund, which is run by the actual Disney family. What does it mean to you to have both the support of the company and also the descendants of Walt Disney?
Susan Egan: First of all, I want to say this is definitely a collaboration. My partner, Adam Levy, and I, we've worked tirelessly on this side by side with Brannon Fells, creative producer at Disney, and the entire team at Disney Concerts. We love working with them. I mean, honestly, we're completely honored, and we all laugh and enjoy ourselves as we are working hard day to day to bring things like this together. But what it means to be a part of the LA Phil and The Hollywood Bowl and the foundation and the approval of the Disney family, I think it's the support for live arts, right? After a time when all of us were huddled in our own homes and isolated from each other, I think we still just deeply appreciate what it is to see something happening live on stage and the importance of that and the fact that the foundation and Disney itself supports creating works like this. We're not filming this, this is not going to be on any TV station. This happens live for two and a half hours, and then it's in the ethers after that, shared only by the people who were there in the orchestra, the crew, and the audience. It's a memory that we're creating together that is ethereal after that, and there's a magic to that that can only happen in a live space.
Benji: You’ve talking about being a Disney fan, but what’s your Disney fan origin story? When did you realize you were a fan?
Susan Egan: I grew up 15 minutes away from Disneyland. I grew up in Seal Beach, which is 15-20 minutes away from Anaheim. And I just felt lucky that I lived there and I had this amazing mom who would wake us up one day a year, we never knew when, it was always on a school day, and she'd wake us up and say, "Okay, today you're not going to school, we're going to Disneyland." And I just thought I had the greatest mom in the world. What I also knew was that she loved Disneyland and didn't want to wait in long lines, so a school day was a good time for her to go, but that's where it all started. And just seeing the parades and seeing the shows at Disneyland growing up, I never knew that I would get to make a living doing this. And I was just completely lucky that my first Broadway show was a Disney show, and I didn't know it then, but it would introduce me to a family that has supported me for the last almost 30 years. Next year will mark 30 years since Beauty and the Beast opened on Broadway. And so to get to do Beauty and the Beast and then to get to be part of an animated feature, and I've done a million things for Disney since on Disney+ and Disney Channel and whatnot, and the fact that they embrace me and support me as a woman to produce now is something I don't take for granted. And I love that once you are a member of the family, they keep you and they support you, and the opportunities are still open. I love that, and I want to pass that along. I'm the oldest one in this show, so it's great to meet this next generation. Shoba Narayan just finished her run as Jasmine on Broadway. She's a baby, and it's her Hollywood Bowl debut. And I get to look at her and say, "Wow, somebody opened that door for me 20 years ago, and now I'm honored that I get to open it for her, and then she'll pass that along."
Benji: You're making me feel old because I remember the excitement of when you were cast as Belle.
Susan Egan: Oh my gosh. Isn't it miraculous that that's 30 years ago, but yet you and I are only 32? Kind of incredible.
Benji: I think you hit on something that Disney is a community, and there's probably no better place to have a communal, live entertainment experience than The Hollywood Bowl with the picnic.
Susan Egan: It's true. And we're there to share the characters with you, to share a little bit about what it was like for us to get to play them, to little pull the curtain back. You can see what it was like behind the scenes, but really we're all loving these characters together and passing the torch. We want the people in the audience to relive their VHS tape glory days and to sing along with us. It is about community. We're all part of that Disney family.
Benji: Can you give a sneak peek of something we can all look forward to during the concert?
Susan Egan: Okay. Well, hearing some of this music in new ways with 4, 5, 6, 7 part harmony is incredible. We're excited to have the students from the Orange County School of the Arts dancing on stage and in the choir, again, passing that torch to the next generation. Some of these arrangements are brand new, which is incredible. And we got the LA Phil premiering these arrangements. The animation has been edited specifically for this show, and you're going to see some really great clips of some scratch animation, some test animation, not even the final product, which is always fun to see what the process is like. As much as we are here celebrating this music, we're celebrating the animators and the artists that in 1923 created this studio and created this art form. And understanding that animation is such a collaborative art form, and it takes everybody on every side to make these films, we really want people to know that and are expressing that a lot in the show. I think it's just going to be a huge celebration that will make people laugh and cry and sing along for sure.
Benji: Well, I can't wait. If it's half as good as Disney Princess: The Conert, I think it'll be a night to remember for forever.
Susan Egan: Oh, I can't wait for you to see the show. Have a great time.
Visit the official Hollywood Bowl website for more details and to purchase tickets.