Thomas Schumacher

Producer and president of the Disney Theatrical Group Thomas Schumacher will hold a conversation with Grammy and Emmy Award-winning musical director, conductor, and composer Paul Bogaev on Tuesday, April 7. The event is part of Professor of Theater Stacy Wolf’s spring course, “Isn’t It Romantic? The Broadway Musical from Rodgers and Hammerstein to Sondheim.” The conversation will begin at 1:30 p.m. in Room 219 at 185 Nassau Street and is free and open to the public.

Since 1988, Schumacher has worked with The Walt Disney Company on various film, television, and theater projects. Currently, he serves as president of the Disney Theatrical Group where he oversees the development, creation, and execution of all live Disney entertainment. His Broadway, West End, touring, and international production credits include Beauty and the Beast, The Lion King, Elton John and Tim Rice’s Aida, High School Musical, Tarzan, Mary Poppins, and The Little Mermaid. Recently, Disney co-produced and developed three acclaimed new shows: Peter and the Starcatcher with New York Theatre Workshop, Aladdin with The 5th Avenue Theatre, and Newsies with Paper Mill Playhouse. Both Newsies and Peter and the Starcatcher are currently playing on Broadway and won seven Tony Awards between them.

Paul Bogaev, who is a returning guest to Wolf’s course, is a multi award-winning artist whose film credits include the Oscar-winning Chicago, for which he won a Grammy Award; Nine; Dreamgirls; Across the Universe; and the Disney films Mulan, The Lion King, and The Emperor’s New Groove. Among his many Broadway credits are Elton John and Tim Rice’s Aida, for which he won his first Grammy; Tarzan; Bombay Dreams, for which he was nominated for a Tony Award; Sunset Boulevard; Chess; Cats; Starlight Express; Les Miserables; and most recently, Spider Man: Turn Off the Dark.

Wolf’s course examines the Broadway musical’s unique conventions of aesthetics and form, and its status as popular entertainment that shapes and is shaped by its historical and cultural context. Special guests are visiting the class throughout the semester. Upcoming events include a master class and conversation with Judith Clurman; Emmy and Grammy-nominated conductor, educator, and choral specialist, which is also free and open to the public.

Wolf is a professor of theater and director of the Princeton Arts Fellows in the Lewis Center where she teaches courses in American musical theatre history, dramaturgy, and dramatic literature, histories of U.S. performance, performance theory, and performance studies.

To learn more, visit http://arts.princeton.edu.

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