[Amendola] The New Amsterdam Theatre is a really special place.
Most theaters will clean up the theater.
They'll maybe put new carpeting down, a fresh coat of paint.
But we did not skimp anywhere.
This was not a recreation. This was a restoration.
We wanted to make sure that people realized
the theater has been around forever, just very well maintained.
Most theaters don't do that. Their job is to take care of the stage,
what you look like when those curtain rises.
For us, the curtain rises when we first walk through these doors.
My name is Dana Amendola.
I'm the Vice President of Operations with Disney Theatrical Group,
and I've been with the Disney corporation for 23 years.
[Amendola] This theater is well over 100 years old.
It's also the oldest building that Disney operates.
With the advent of talkies and the Depression,
there wasn't much a demand for live theater on 42nd Street,
so instead, it became a movie house.
It stayed that way for a while, and that's when it finally closed in the '80s.
It sat abandoned for close to 20 years,
until Disney had the foresight to come in and really make something of this place.
I actually ran a series of 3,000 seat theaters around the country,
but then I saw an ad for a theater manager of the New Amsterdam Theatre,
someone to kinda complete the project.
So I applied for the job, and 48 hours later they had hired me.
As Vice President of Operations for Disney Theatrical Group,
no two days are exactly the same.
My challenge here was to make this theater as exciting as anything on the stage.
This theater looks exactly the way it does in 1921.
This lighting sconce is actually rumored to be around the entire theater,
but we didn't have an actual version of what she'd looked like in the theater.
All we had was a woman's diary
that described a woman with a crown of bulbs in her hair.
So we thought this is what she would look like.
We were simply gonna recast her several times.
That's when we found something hidden in a wall.
This is the actual piece that we found in the wall,
behind this column, sealed in her original box,
with her little light bulbs in their original boxes.
We dusted her off, screwed in the light bulbs, and she worked fine.
The response to Disney Theatrical Group shows in this building
has been absolutely fantastic.
The Lion King was a show that no one saw before.
Mary Poppins worked so spectacularly in this theater.
And for something like Aladdin, that's just so incredibly fun and playful,
worked so well in the theater.
This is the area that most people don't get to see,
that is the backstage of Aladdin.
And the amazing thing about a backstage on Broadway is how tight it is.
Real estate is very desirable, and there's not much of it.
So we suspend stuff from the ceilings, on the side.
Anywhere we can find a place to put something, we will.
The New Amsterdam Theatre is a really special place.
The nature of this theater, the way it's designed.
It's 1,800 seats but it's extremely intimate.
And they made it intimate by making elements of it larger than life.
There's not an ounce that isn't covered with some type of elaborate grape or leaf
or peacock surrounding the entire proscenium.
This was all very deliberate.
This was all very much in keeping with the Art Nouveau stylings of the time.
The light bulbs are incandescent light bulbs on the interior of the theater.
That's the way it was lit back in the 1920s.
The ushers' costumes are made up of elements of this theater.
The design filigree is all from elements of this theater.
Hi, folks. Welcome to the New Amsterdam Theatre.
This is aisle one of the orchestra.
Aisles two, three and four, straight ahead.
Here's where all the training, all the preparation--
This is the final payoff, when we actually open the doors.
A total immersive theater experience is what you get when you come here.
From the moment you cross past those doors and are seated in your seat,
and that curtain goes up, it's an entire experience.
[xylophone playing]
Good to go from front of house. Thanks.
That's it.
What was created here, really, it's more than a theater. It's a museum.
What makes it so incredibly special is its rich, continuing history. I mean you--
From the architecture, to who appeared on this stage,
to what it did for this community and for this city,
and to think that Disney brought this to them, really makes me feel proud.