Paste your essay in here…Elyssa DiRaddo
Disney Paper
1.
Alan Menken is an American Musical Theater composer. He was born in New York City. He grew up in a household filled with music and theater as his mom was an aspiring actress and playwright and his father played the piano and was a full time dentist. Received piano and violin lessons as a child, but he was never good at practicing. He learned to “fake” his music. His teachers picked up his ability to change the music to make it easier and encouraged him to continue writing music and start composing, so he did.
Allen went to college at New York University and switched his major several times. He was originally a Pre Med major and then switched to Anthropology, to Philosophy and final received his bachelor’s degree in Musicology. Once he graduated he took on job writing the music for Children of the World, where he met his now wife of 45 years. He also received jobs around New York, like being the songwriter for Sesame Street, was a vocal coach, and performed his material at clubs in New York City.
After a few years working on Broadway Musicals, his most famous of that time Little Shop of Horror , Howard Ashman asked Alan to work for Disney. He has three projects that are his most successful. He worked on The Little Mermaid, Snow White, and Cinderella. When he first started working for Disney, he was based in New York but then moved to Los Angeles with Howard Ashman. While working at Disney, he won both Golden Globes and Oscars for his work while at Disney.
Menken is still alive and is still working. In his most recent work includes stage adaptations of his Disney works and was nominated for the Tony Award for the Best Original Score for the stage adaptation of “The Little Mermaid” and he currently has three running shows on Broadway currently.
2.
Walter Elias Disney was born December 5th, 1901 in Hermosa, Illinois. Disney moved around a decent amount as a child. In 1906, his family moved to a small town in Missouri to own a farm. It was while Disney was living in Missouri that he started to become extremely interested in drawing. Disney continued to move and attended school at Benton Grammar School in Kansas City Missouri. As a child Disney and his brother Roy were paper boys who had to deliver the papers early in the morning, leading to Disney falling asleep in class and receiving poor grades in school.. At the age of 16 Disney had to move back to Chicago and he started becoming a cartoonist in his school newspaper. By the age of 18 he had received a commercial illustrator job.
In 1919 Disney lived in Kansas City and pursued a career as a newspaper artist. He got a job at Rubin Art Studio and networked his way though Kansas City and was able to start his own company. After working for a while, Walt Disney and his brother Roy Disney moved to Hollywood together to create their own studio, Disney Brother’s Studio. He first stared with Alice cartoons, and after someone stole the rights, they created a new character, the now famous Mickey Mouse.
Once Mickey was developed, they started to create animated shorts and started to gain momentum in the film industry. He created Silly Symphonies and started to create more characters, like Goofy and Pluto. In December of 1937, the Disney Brother’s first full-length animated film premiered, Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, which won 8 Oscars and did amazing even with the Depression.
Walt Disney Studios continued to create more films and continued to do extremely well, and even made their way to the television. On July 17th, 1955, the famous Disneyland in Anaheim, California opened. Very quickly the park stared to increase in popularity and attracted tourists worldwide. Several years after the park opened, Disney began to plan a second theme park. In 1966, while what is now Disney World, Walt Disney was diagnosed with lung cancer. In December of 1966, he died at the age of 65 and was cremated and had his ashes spread in the Forest Lawn Cemetery. His brother continued the plans for Disney World, finally opened in 1971.
3.
“Poor Unfortunate Souls” is from the musical “The Little Mermaid”. It was originally a fairy tale from Hans Christian Anderson. The film in which this song was used was first released November 17th, 1989. “The Little Mermaid” was then brought to Broadway by 2008, after a tryout run in Denver in 2007 with Sierra Boggess as Ariel.
4.
Although “The Little Mermaid” is a fictional story based on old fairytales, there are some social norms broken. First, Ariel is born into a royal family, and could gain higher power, but is very invested in people and items would be in a lower social economic class. She makes friends with those are her Sebastian. She is fixated on the fact of being something she is not, and knowing all about this world she is not a part of, and would risk anything to be a part of that world.
5.
6.
Ursula sings the song “Poor Unfortunate Souls” in The Little Mermaid. Ursula is the antagonist, as she is the one who tries to take Ariel’s voice. In the song she is speaking to Ariel, and is trying to get Ariel’s voice and if Ariel gives it up, she would become human, to meet her prince charming. There is some change in what Ursula’s relationship is dependent on the version, but there was one point where Ursula was King Triton’s sister, making her Ariel’s aunt, but in the original film this concept was dropped.
7.
Howard Ashman is the lyricist of “Poor Unfortunate Souls” and the song is a sung monologue to Ariel about what she needs to do in order to become a human. Ursula sings about how she has magical powers and she can help Ariel even though she has a vicious past. She persuades Ariel to sign the contract and give up her voice to become human.
8.