By Ron Baxley

(Source: David Skipper) David as Walt is shown with “his office” in the background.

Walt Disney is just plain fun. He is outgoing, gregarious, and inquisitive, much like Oz author L. Frank Baum. Audiences often ask me what is my favorite character?  I tell them it is always the one I am currently performing. But Walt Disney is by far the most rewarding. My goal is always to dispel myths and misconceptions about the characters I portray and to share in their creative process.  I encourage the audience to pursue reading source material to learn more and increase their education and literacy. With Disney, many people claim that he was racist and did not hire female employees. Through my performance, I destroy these myths with hard facts and place them into the context of the 1960s. I perform one-man shows of authors I have loved throughout my life, such as Charles Dickens, Edgar Allan Poe, Kenneth Grahame, H.G. Wells, James M. Barrie, L. Frank Baum, and The Rev. Charles L. Dodgson.  I have had people come up and suggest characters I should do, such as Melvil Dewey, the inventor of the Dewey Decimal System.   I could not think of a more appealing topic for librarians, but the general public, no way.  I would find talking about card cataloging boring.  There has to be a certain marketability to the characters I chose.  Other characters that I have been doing research on for possible performances include Rudyard Kipling and Egyptologist Howard Carter.  They have to be someone I have a literary and historical interest in.  I have started writing a new one-man show of my first fictional character, Professor James A. Moriarity, Sherlock Holmes’ nemesis.

(Source: David Skipper) A make-up test for the development of a new one-man show called Chaos Theory: Moriarity, The Napoleon of Crime.

I had a fun childhood and wonderful parents who did not really understand me at all. They realized I was creative and I remember being given art lessons, but what I really wanted to do is learn to play the piano. There are certain emotions and experiences I can draw upon to refine a character as needed. But it is more about understanding the character and motivation of the individual I am portraying that inspires me. Hal Holbrook’s “Mark Twain Tonight” was a milestone for me. I’ve seen that show live three times. I told Holbrook he had become my mentor. Graciously he said, “I am glad to have played a part in your career.  I am amazed at the number of characters you perform.”

EPCOT has always been a let-down for me and I recall seeing American Adventure once.  It took five years to build and has some of the best audio-animatronics conceived. But to be honest I don't remember much about it. I prefer Great Moments With Mr. Lincoln. It really shows the drama and passion Walt had for our 16th president. I recall when Royal Dano was recording Lincoln's speech, Walt kept saying after each take, "That's good, but do it again.  After several hours of recording Walt had worn Dano down to where he sounded tired and weary, which is what how he wanted Lincoln to sound.  It was not just about delivering the speech, but conveying great emotion.
Again, all the great rides have become extinct.  I loved the Norway pavilion, which has now been commercialized into a Frozen Attraction.

I was also encouraged by an article in Life Magazine about a university biology professor who gave lectures to his students in character as Mendel and Charles Darwin. I thought, what a fascinating way to learn, combining education with entertainment, which is what Walt Disney did.

The greatest part of a Chautauqua style presentation is that after the dramatic monologue I open it up to questions. I remain in character. I respond to those questions as Walt would. This is very dangerous for an actor, but the most exhilarating part of the show. You need to have a pretty large base of knowledge in your brain. I have not been stumped by a question yet. In the final moments of the Q&A, I break from character and respond to questions as a scholar. I respond to those questions I could not answer as Walt Disney. No matter what show I perform, someone inevitably asks the question ‘how did you die?’ when I am still in character.  I usually blow if off by using the Mark Twain’s remark, “Reports of my death have been greatly exaggerated.”

Method acting is a humbug!  I prescribe to Sir Laurence Olivier’s mantra, “why don’t you try acting dear boy?”

Yes, I invite the spirit of the individual I am portraying to share my living, breathing space and they never let me down. I have written scripts, but rarely follow them. I feel what the audience wants to hear and talk about and I focus on those things.

I use props in all my shows, but my Disney show has the most, which people love to see. There are original animation drawings, models, maquettes, animation cels, operational handbooks, letters, a 3 ½ foot model of the TWA Moonliner and an animatronic parrot and dinosaur. Allowing audiences to see this memorabilia, it makes the films real, they come alive.

Seeing the Pinocchio Exhibit at the Walt Disney Family Museum last May was an awe-inspiring experience for me.  Seeing Gustaf Tengren’s finely detailed drawings and sketches brought the film to life.  You realize a Herculean effort went into the making of these classic animated films.

(Source: David Skipper) One of David's prize animation drawings is Samson, Prince Phillip’s horse in “Sleeping Beauty” drawn by one of the famous Nine Old Men, John Lounsbery.

I have pretty much stayed in the theater world. Yes, I performed in plays in college, where I was bitten by the acting bug. I was one of the poker playing buddies in “The Odd Couple” and a dancing bear in “Carousel.” 

My first foray into one-man shows was appearing in a university art history class as Vincent van Gogh. I studied the letters between van Gogh and his brother Theo, was tutored in a smattering of Dutch and even painted my own props in van Gogh’s style.

I helped found the Irish Playwright’s Festival in Tallahassee (FL) and was featured as a main character, an old IRA soldier, in an original play by my longtime friend Michael Sheridan. I also provided primitive atmospheric music with my didjiredo and bodhran to an adaption of William Butler Yeats “The Death of Cuchulain.”  I also wrote and performed a one-off one-man show as Padrig Pearse, leader of the Irish Easter Rebellion of 1916. The one-act play takes place in his prison cell the night before his execution by the British.

I have been a professional storyteller, focusing upon folktales from my Musgogee Creek Native American ancestry and my own personal interest in Australian aboriginal dreamtime legends. I am proud to say that one of my stories was recorded at the famous White Springs Folk Festival and is preserved in the Florida archives.

My absurd play, “Morpheous and Somnabula” a Shakespearean-style comic parody was produced by the Tallahassee Community College in the mid 80s.  A music student even wrote an original musical score, which included “The Farte Ballet,” performed with two dueling tubas. Don’t ask.

While I enjoy the synergy of working with other people, I really prefer to do my one-man shows.

I will spend anywhere from six months to a year preparing for a new one-man show. With Walt Disney, I was already ahead of the curve, having studied him and his studio considerably while in college. One of the papers I wrote for my Master’s degree was “The Disney Studios at War,” which I still have buried somewhere. 

As per books, I am addicted. I have my own resource library. I have just about every book that has been written about Walt and his studio. The same goes for the other characters I portray. 

I try to distill in a one-hour to 90-minute script, the essence of the man and his creative output, being sure that I identify those characteristics and stories that will appeal to the audience.

Early on, with one of my very first one-man shows as 18th century Scottish poet Robert Burns I worked with a dialect coach.  I got so good with the old Scots tongue I had to slow my performance down so people could half-way understand what I said.  I have always been good with dialects.  I do not try to replicate Walt’s voice, other than by speaking with reassurance and slowly with a tiny mid-western accent. With me, it is not about the voice, but the outgoing, larger than life personality. The twinkle in the eye and reassurance.  It works for me and the audience.

(Source: David Skipper) David as a beaming Walt Disney with a Mickey Mouse Club television show script in hand.

I am retired at long last, but had a career in Communications for over 40 years.  Out of college, I became a newspaper editor on a country weekly. I was a film critic on a Florida daily newspaper and two of the first films I reviewed was “Star Wars” and “The Spy Who Love Me.” I was a spokesperson for the Florida Department of Corrections and later a correctional training manager. I was Director of Communications for the Florida Health Care Association, an educator at the Denver Museum of Nature and Science and Vice President of Emergency Management and Communications for the Colorado Health Care Association.  Acting was my sanity saver. Now I can afford to focus on just my creative endeavors. But it continues to be a challenge. People still expect artist to work for free or practically nothing. I have tried to promote my L. Frank Baum show to any number of Oz events around the country. I know these venues have small budgets, but I simply cannot afford to give away my talents.