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Disney, Universal actors enrich local theater
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Disney's Adventurers Club at Pleasure Island, an intense incubator of improvisational skills, closed down at the end of September.
The Adventurers Club is gone, as are the Comedy Warehouse and the rest of the clubs on Disney’s Pleasure Island. The last mask laughed and winked a couple of weeks back, and the actors have moved on to different theme-park stages, or left town for other opportunities. The Pleasure Island clubs will be missed, as their interactive atmosphere was unique among theme parks.
It isn’t the first time actors have been laid off by Disney. After 9-11, when Central Florida tourism tanked, about 100 full-time Equity actors were shown the door.
How does this affect the local theater scene, which has been enriched by the presence of high-quality actors, directors and theater workers here for the union pay scales at the theme parks? Fortunately for Orlando theatergoers, Disney has retained many of the Pleasure Island performers whose faces we’ve come to know and love on local stages.
Why do talented actors stick around Central Florida? Because the area offers a situation rarely found outside New York or Los Angeles. Actors can actually make a living here.
“The security of a one-year contract,” is one reason to stay, said T. Robert Pigott, an actor who has appeared on theme park and local stages for more than a decade. “Not to mention the medical and dental benefits.”
Pigott, Jay Becker and Philip Nolen, all actors who thrive on the combination of theme park work and local theater, shared their thoughts about life in Orlando with me this week. All three came to town after studying theater in school, seeking professional employment in films or at the parks.
Becker and Nolen arrived in the early 90s, went to Disney auditions, and ended up working at the Adventurers Club and Comedy Warehouse, among other park venues. Pigott performed in Europe and New York before going to work for Disney in 1995. He also was a staple at Adventurer’s Club. Between them, the three have performed at nearly every theater company in Central Florida.
They all say the parks have changed the local theater scene, whether through the quality of acting, directing and backstage workers available, or in influencing the move toward professional theater status.
Becker called the Pleasure Island clubs “the gold ring of theme park acting,” where actors received an intense daily workout in improvisation, and then took those skills into the local theaters. The main change Nolen has noticed is “what the actors expect.” The theater scene was vibrant in the early 90s, he said, but it definitely had a community-theater feel. “It was a fun, collegial environment, but now there is an expectation from the actors of a more professional environment, with pay.”
With the greater number of Equity actors in town there are a greater number of Equity contracts available, Pigott said. There’s a special Actors Equity Association contract designed especially for Orlando, he said. It gives theaters the chance to use professional actors at a slightly discounted rate. It also allows union actors who work full time at the parks to do outside theater.
For more, see Part II.
For more info: Check out a tribute site to the Adventurers Club at www.MySpace.com/adventurersclub.
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