The last few weeks have been pretty crazy around here at Days in the Park. With the Christmas holidays in full swing, and a lot of illness going around, we just haven't been able to make it out to Disneyland for "blog fodder", or to write about our favorite place on the planet, as much as we would have liked. We do apologize to all of our readers for the sporadic nature of things as of late. However, we're slowly picking up steam again and put out a few items more regularly than as of late this week. We can only hope it's a good sign of great things to come! We truly appreciate our readers and feel that you guys deserve the best, and regular, that we can give. We're trying so please bear with us as we continue to start rolling again!
On Tuesday, Amy was finally back with us after a fairly long hiatus (we've missed her!) to talk about another one of her "Favorite Things" from the Disneyland Resort: Flashback!
In this week's "Almost" Wordless Wednesday,
we spent one last evening out on the final night of Holidays at the Disneyland Resort, our DROIDs in hand, capturing some shots to share with our readers of the random fun
And finally on Thursday, we teased a brand-new (as of yet unnamed!) segment where, weekly, we'll be answering one unknown reader's question about different topics from around the Disneyland Resort
Like we said earlier, things have been pretty crazy around here lately, but we're finally experiencing some more normalcy in our routines and hopefully that will begin to show up in all of our articles. We have some really neat things coming up inside Disneyland that we're working on doing (like the "One More Disney Day" and Half Marathon Weekend) that we're super-excited to begin talking about and you'll be hearing more about those (especially the marathon!) many times over the coming month/s. And we couldn't be happier to see Amy back! We've really missed her around here, so let her know you enjoyed seeing her back as well! We're also really excited to have found another way to "give back" by answering your search engine questions and can't wait to begin rolling out this week. We always see some interesting (and downright funny!) ones come up, so it should be a lot of fun all around. Our Magical Mystery Monday games continue to do well, and there's no shortage of spots for those, so look for them to continue, and we have more than the lion's share of pictures just waiting to be rolled out in our "Almost" Wordless Wednesday offerings. Should be loads of fun!
Our ParkCast (podcast) continues to grow and do well, which we're very happy about. We're getting new downloads each and every day, so someone is listening! We're very thankful for everyone that has! We'll be working on a brand new episode this weekend to drop next week, and we have a very special guest along for the ride, so be sure to keep your eyes (and ears!) open for its release. If you
haven't
taken the time to start listening to us yet, we'd love to have you give
us a try!
You can listen to, or
download, our show on our "ParkCast" website: http://www.daysintheparkcast.com, or you can subscribe to our show and listen to us in iTunes.
Give us a listen and let us know what you think! We'd love to hear back from you!
We can't wait to see what the next few weeks, and months, will bring to "Days". Thanks so much for stopping by! It's going to be a great week, so come on back. We love having you around!
It's been quite a long time (so long that it's almost embarrassing) since I've been able to sit down and write something here. Long story short, life threw me a couple big curve balls, and then with the holidays and catching the worst cold I've had in forever, it was just a lost cause as far as finding time to write! But here I am, happy to be back with one of my favorite things to share with you.
I'm pretty sure that the pictures for this post probably won't be too exciting for anyone but me, but I'm still excited to share them with you because they are about Disney, albeit a part of Disney that most people don't know anything about: Flashback! It's the annual production put on by groups of Cast Members from throughout the Disneyland Resort to raise money for the benefit of local charities. Basically all of the different departments at The Resort are grouped into teams, and each team puts together a "mini-musical" of sorts. It was one of my favorite things to be a part of because you meet people from all over the entire resort. It's an experience filled with amazing friendships and awesome memories.
Here's a great little video that Disney Parks posted on YouTube last year around Flashback time:
Yup, that's me on the Hyperion Stage in the cloak with the roses! The cloak, by the way, was a costume piece that was used in the production of "Beauty & The Beast: Live on Stage" at Disneyland from 1992-1995!
The show is performed in the Hyperion Theater in the Hollywood Pictures Backlot at Disney California Adventure Park, which being a true Disney nerd and having a love of performing, is such an awesome stage to get to perform on, plus (and most importantly) and all the proceeds from ticket sales go to local charities and the Cast Members VoluntEARS hours go to the Disney VOluntEARS program. The very first Flashback started in 1998 and was held in the Golden Horseshoe at Disneyland Park, which is a much smaller stage, to say the least!
Each year there is a theme chosen to help coordinate all the teams shows. Leadership teams are formed from Cast Members who write the scripts and pick music, come up with choreography and direct the casts in rehearsals. The last year that I participated, the theme was "Flashback On Broadway", and our team's show was Twilight Zone: The Musical.
This picture shows some of the rehearsal silliness. Rehearsals, though lots of hard work were also so much fun. Here we were working on some blocking, and I was practicing my cheesy pose to hold while the narrator was talking. Pretty cheesy, right? I think we all have the overly-dramatic/cheesy pose down!
Rehearsals were held nightly in the rehearsal halls; Monday-Thursday from about 8:30-11:30pm. Keep in mind, this was all volunteer time, and for me and the others, was usually after a long day including school and a working a shift in The Parks.
Before performance night, we'd have a "play day," where we would get to take the kids that are a part of the charities benefiting from Flashback that year, into The Parks for a day of fun. That was always a fantastic time because for most of the kids, it was their first time at Disneyland! Getting to experience the magic through their eyes was priceless!
On performance we have a panel of judges who determines which team has the most impressive production in terms of theming, choreography, vocal performance, and overall entertainment value. My last year we did really well, and it was by far one of my favorite shows I've ever been a part of.
My character's name was Lola; I was basically a city-witch type character who placed a curse upon a man so that throughout his day everyone would spontaneously break out into song and dance.
This picture is of the main characters for the 2004 Orange Team cast: Marci Dodd (those who have seen the National Touring Cast or '07-'09 Los Angeles production of "Wicked" may recognize her; she went on from Disney to play some great Broadway roles including Nessarose and understudy for Elphaba in "Wicked"!), the amazingly talented and dear friend Jason Hammond, little ole' me, K.J. Van Nevel, and Christian Leon
In this picture I'm posing with a fellow cast member, Jon, who directed every Flashback team I was on, and wrote the shows as well. Such a talented guy! And P.S. - Just ignore the time stamps on all these pictures, it was WAY off!
I am so silly! This is me hanging out in the Hollywood Backlot after
the show, doing my best Vanna White impersonation of the Flashback sign
affixed to a limo parked near the Hyperion.
This was one of my all-time favorite experiences while working for Disney. Having the opportunity to be a part of raising a whole lot of money for places like the Boys & Girls Club of Anaheim, The United Way, and Special Olympics Orange County was such an honor, and doing it in such a fun place with some of the most awesome people I've ever met was absolutely amazing! Even today, I still try to make it to the show if I can, because I know how much hard work, dedication and love goes into each show.
In fact, it's that time of year again! The Flashback Kick-off was Monday night and Disneyland Resort Cast Members have begun rehearsals for this year's Flashback, and ticket pre-sales are already underway. One of the friends I made back in my Flashback days, Binh, has been the highest ticket seller for this event for the past two years, and she'd love to go for a three-peat as the top ticket seller this year, too! But, she needs our help in selling Flashback pre-sale tickets! Here is all the information you might need to know:
Show dates & times: Wednesday, March 7th & Thursday, March 8th at 8:00pm
Location: The Hyperion Theater inside of Disney California Adventure Park
Ticket Prices: $20 - Orchestra, $16 - Mezzanine, and $11 - Balcony
When ticket money is due: Wednesday, January 18th
Also, keep in mind that if you're unable to attend you can still donate to a ticket and contribute to two great local charities!
If you're interested in attending or supporting flashback, connect with me on twitter (@amyululani) and I can get you connected with my friend Binh to make that happen.
So there you have it! One of my favorite experiences from my Cast Member days and my favorite thing for this post. I want to wish the 2012 Cast and Production Team all the best as you prepare for this year's show, and as they say on stage, break a leg!
