Performance and the Disney Theme Park Experience

This book addresses Disney parks using performance theory. Certainly Disney presents a primary reading, but generations of critical theory have established the variety of reading strategies that interpreters can employ to read against the text. ​This collection of essays explores the Disney theme parks as performance spaces—as immersive theatre spaces—and examines the agency of the tourist within those spaces. In contrast to much previous Disney scholarship, Performance and the Disney Theme Park Experience asserts that park guests collaborate with Disney Imagineers more than typically assumed. The book’s various sections explore nostalgia, utopia, progress, and fantasy; the ideology of park environments; the presence of human and audio-animatronic performers; and the inclusion of outsider identities within the parks. Jennifer A. Kokai is an Associate Professor and Theatre Program Coordinator at Weber State University. She is the author of S wim Pretty: Aquatic Spectacles and the Performance of Race, Gender, and Nature (SIU Press, 2017). Tom Robson is Associate Professor and Coordinator of Academic Programs in the Millikin University School of Theatre & Dance. He has published on topics ranging from historical stage technology to African American theatre to baseball movies.