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. This book addresses Disney parks using performance theory. Few to no scholars have done this to date—an enormous oversight given the Disney parks’ similarities to immersive theatre, interpolation of guests, and dramaturgical construction of attractions. Most scholars and critics deny agency to the tourist in their engagement with the Disney theme park experience. The vast body of research and journalism on the Disney “Imagineers”—the designers and storytellers who construct the park experience—leads to the misconception that these exceptional artists puppeteer every aspect of the guest’s experience. Contrary to this assumption, Disney park guests find a range of possible reading strategies when they enter the space. 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 volume of twelve essays re-centers the park experience around its protagonist: the tourist.