For the definition of "blockbuster" look to "The Lion King," which comes to Pittsburgh for an extended run and creates a ticket-buying frenzy. That happened in 2004 when the Disney juggernaut made its first six-week visit, and it has proved the case again for its return six-week visit to the Benedum Center, Thursday through Feb. 17.

Thomas Schumacher

It's a reminder that the most dynamic entrepreneurial force on today's Broadway is the Buena Vista Theatrical Group, aka Disney Theatricals. Once midtown Manhattan was ruled by Cameron Mackintosh and the Anglo-European pop operas, but now it's Disney, with adaptations of its animated movies. Starting with "Beauty and the Beast," Disney has conquered the American theater with five hits in nine tries. That percentage might not fly in the movie business, but it's great in theater, especially when two of the

hits are among the biggest box-office bonanzas of all time.

So it seemed time to talk to Thomas Schumacher, head of Disney Theatricals. If Disney is the master of Broadway, it's Schumacher who is at the master controls.

As with any leader, his key skill is in picking people. When he took over Disney Theatricals, it already had a huge stage hit in "Beauty and the Beast." But Schumacher was willing to argue with success: for "Lion King," he and Disney chairman Peter Schneider made a seemingly noncommercial choice, hiring alternative theater designer-director Julie Taymor.

The result is Taymor's colorful African world of humans, animals and natural wonders, realized by a mix of actors, costumes and puppets -- a quantum imaginative leap from "Beauty and the Beast," with its more literal transformation from animation to stage.

And Schumacher has continued to invest Disney's money and support in unconventional artistic choices, such as designer Bob Crowley to create "Tarzan." The latest is opera director Francesca Zambello, whose vision for "The Little Mermaid" will be unveiled in a few weeks.

Theatrical leadership isn't just about creating. You also have to keep the machines oiled and the trains running on time. In a relaxed phone interview before Christmas, Schumacher pointed out Disney had "16 or 17 shows playing somewhere in the world" that day, only three on Broadway. "Shakespeare was never truer, that all the world's a stage," he said. And Schumacher is also in charge of Disney Live Family Entertainment and Disney on Ice, with all their touring shows.

He has bosses, of course. Disney Theatricals is part of Walt Disney Studios, the real masters of the universe. So it stands to reason Schumacher can cite rosy financial returns. He points out that "Tarzan" may have failed on Broadway but it's a hit in Europe, where an expanded version opened last year in Amsterdam. "High School Musical" is coining profits on tour. "Aida" is still touring and is also garnering licensing fees from local productions. And "we make more licensing 'Beauty and the Beast' than most shows make in a year. ... In a business with a 90 percent failure rate, our back-of-the-envelope success is about 80 percent."

But his mastery of the numbers notwithstanding, Schumacher personally gives off a very different vibration than the mega-corporation Disney image might suggest. On the phone, he's informal and youthful (he turned 50 this month -- "I share my birthday with Walt Disney and George Custer; that's what life's about"). And his background isn't right out of the counting house, as you might expect.

"The first professional play I ever saw was Peter Brook's 'Midsummer Night's Dream,' " he says -- the seminal 1971 production set in a magical white box. As a young man he worked on international theater festivals and Brooks' daylong Indian epic, "The Mahabharata." He tosses around the names of such international theater gurus as Georgio Strehler, Adrienne Mnouchkine and Tadeusz Kantor.

"You have to take in their power," he says. "Nonprofits all over are deeply influenced by this work," and smart commercial producers should be, too.

He admits, "it's always a bit of a surprise when I sit and talk with theater people, because when you hear Disney you immediately think Norman Rockwell or Main Street Disneyland." But he points out that Walt Disney gets a bad rap: "When people say 'Disneyesque,' they forget 'Fantasia.' Disney made an offer to Salvador Dali. He was a futurist. 'Dumbo' is a flight of fancy with wacky, wacky ideas. Most people don't know the oeuvre."

Schumacher does. He grew up a big movie fan. But he's eager to talk stage musicals, too. Asked for his personal top five he quickly comes up with "A Little Night Music," "Oliver!," "Sweeney Todd" and "The Music Man" -- "a great American musical with that progressive opening number; my desert island disc would be 'The Sadder But Wiser Girl.' "

He stalls on number five. "Cole Porter has great scores but lousy books." The conversation spirals off in different directions. He quotes Oscar Hammerstein: "A revival has to be twice as good as the original because the original is always remembered as being twice as good as it was."

Schumacher is a such an engaging conversationalist you even believe he actually did write ("with Jeff Kurtti," it says) "How Does the Show Go On?," a lively new hardback introduction to the theater for adolescents. Into 128 colorful pages it packs all kinds of background and personal anecdotes, lavishly illustrated with photos from Disney shows, plus such pullouts as a Playbill, script pages and costume sketches.

Growing up in California, Schumacher went to UCLA. He worked on the 1984 Olympic Arts Festival, was assistant general manager of the Los Angeles Ballet, spent five years in theater at the Mark Taper Forum and was associate director of the 1987 Los Angeles Festival of Arts, which presented the American premiere of Cirque du Soleil.

Joining Disney films in 1988, Schumacher played a key role in its movie animation renaissance. He first produced "The Rescuers Down Under" and then "The Lion King." In all, he supervised 21 animated Disney features, including "Pocahontas," "Toy Story," "Mulan," "A Bug's Life," "Monsters, Inc.," "Finding Nemo" and many more -- some of which he might even end up working on again, on stage.

He explained that Disney is not part of the League of American Theaters and Producers, the Broadway group recently struck for 19 days by the stagehands union, because "we would prefer not to collectively bargain." But he defends Disney's labor record and suggests that Disney may be the largest employer of union actors, when you add in its theme parks. He steams over rumors that Disney is cheap in dealing with unions, blaming them on the fact that Disney is a big, easy target.

He notes the conflict of interest within the League between producers and theater owners, some of whom are producers, too, and claims, "I'd rather make shows than manage real estate."

So what is the Disney Formula for stage success?

"First off, many people say we succeed because of marketing, but if that were so, 'Tarzan' would still be running. We don't keep a show running if the audience doesn't want to come; we don't buy our way to success."

But Disney will "often do things differently," and he cites the hiring of Taymor, Zambello et al. As to Disney's unconventional designs, "we don't do conventional material. When you're doing underwater or the jungle or the savanna, how do you put them on stage? What would you do? What are the choices?" Sometimes the risky choice is essential, even though, as for "Tarzan," it might not work.

He also defends "Beauty and the Beast," with its conventional, operetta feel, pointing out it came from the theme parks branch of Disney. "It's hard to say they were wrong since some 23 million people saw its 11 productions and it grossed vastly more on stage than on film."

In "Changing Stages," his book on 20th century theater, British director Richard Eyre had some dismissive things to say about "Beauty and the Beast." So when Schumacher hired Eyre to direct "Mary Poppins," he told him, "You should be so lucky to have a hit on that scale."

Ahead for Disney Theatricals, after "Little Mermaid," are three projects, none of them what you might expect. One is a prequel to "Peter Pan." Another is based on Jules Feiffer's "The Man in the Ceiling." And the third is "a large project based on a historical figure" -- that's all he'd say.

What about, oh, "Aladdin"?

"I don't yet have a way that 'Aladdin' complements what Broadway does best," he says. "There has to be a reason for it to go on to the next step."

Schumacher claims a Pittsburgh connection in one of his assistants, Benjy Shaw. Shaw was a marketing and then directorial intern at Pittsburgh CLO when they staged "High School Musical." Informed that Shaw wanted to meet him, Schumacher told him, " 'If you hold my briefcase all night long, I'll give you five minutes to make your pitch.' Smart kind, he impressed everybody" -- so now he works for Disney.

In some sense, so do we all.

First Published: January 6, 2008, 10:00 a.m.