The Super Secret Project...FINALLY

Have you ever had a dream come true?

I live near Disney World and there's a lot of talk about dreams and following your dreams around here. Which I love, but no one talks about how HARD that can be. Walt Disney had everything on the line -- his home, his life -- when Snow White hit the big screens and took off. He'd had properties/characters taken by previous studios, risked and failed, risked and failed again... His family must have thought him insane. He borrowed money, leveraged himself AND his brother out to make this show happen. That's how hard he believed.

And we can all see the result of his dream...but we miss the true miracle: that he didn't quit.

I keep that story in my pocket. We've had a secret project (that I've occasionally talked about here, because, you know, you're my buddies) and with several false starts, things have suddenly changed.

What changed?

Us.

My project started as a literal dream. I woke, ran to my piano (keyboard), and picked out the song I'd been listening to in my sleep -- a musical about a vampire, where the vampire was the good guy. (This was pre-Twilight, so...) I played and sang the song for my husband and his jaw hit the floor. When he returned from work several hours later and I had TWO MORE songs, he suggested we should take a week and just see what happened. By the end of that week, we had 10 songs and most of the storyline.

That was the FUN part. The creative process usually is.

Fast forward 22 years, three separate starts, NYC, finding a producer, losing a producer, two previous creative teams, three previous readings... And finally the show made it to the stage.

This last month, we hosted a benefit reading to rave reviews. I'm glad the audience got to enjoy it. I sat in the front, madly conducting the entire show while my poor husband sat in the tech booth, head down to make sure we didn't miss any lighting or sound cues. WHAT A RUSH.

No one was privy to the mountain of work behind the scenes: two years of planning, workshopping, casting, reworking, recasting, transcribing sheet music to a new scoring program, the creation of 200 learning videos, financial planning, team recruiting, mixing music (2 hours worth of audio), rehearsing, adjusting, designing...

THEY only saw the final product. The real miracle is what happened before.

And so let me unveil for you the project that has consumed half my life -- my second baby.

Check it out. Follow on Facebook. Join our insanity. GIVE US MONEY. 😂 (But seriously.) And if you'd like to be kept in the loop on our exploits, join the newsletter list (at the end of this post.)

Phase one is finally complete. In the next couple weeks we'll have the audio and video back to form a new highlight reel with these incredible performers. Now we lay the groundwork for phase two: the world premier with a live orchestra. With any luck, this show will hit the stage in 1.5-2.5 years, with a social media campaign to launch it toward Broadway (2030?).

There you have it. It's happening. Why? Because we are willing to work ourselves into the ground to make it happen. Any truly amazing dream is worth the blood, sweat, and tears. You have to believe your dreams into reality because otherwise they remain only that -- dreams. 

What secret projects are you chipping away at? What dreams are you pursuing? Who do you look up to as a dream-accomplishing hero/inspiration?

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True Heroes: Dare to Dream, or the infamous "D"

True heroes are all around us, in our every day lives, but some people stand out. During this A-Z Challenge I hope to share several of my real life heroes, and invite you to share yours in the comments.

One of my favorite bits of advice from my teenagedom was "Dare to dream," and when you put that idea together with the fact we live in Florida, there's really only one option for D.

isney, Walt: Here's an extreme risk taker who believed so hard in his dreams that he risked EVERYTHING, and ended up leaving a family legacy for the world.

Walt dropped out of school at 16 and went to work for the Red Cross in France. Upon returning, he tried to find a career as a newspaper cartoonist, but no one would hire him. His brother got him a job at the bank, and he started creating ads for them. When he quit, he and a colleague tried to start their own commercial company.

And failed.

He didn't give up though. He got another job, built connections, and started a "hobby" studio for animation with a friend in their off time. Innovating the cartooning process, he moved into cell cartooning rather than cut out cartooning and landed a deal with a local theater.

Success!

He was able to start his own studio full time, that eventually failed in bankruptcy. Fail #2.

Did he quit? No. He sold what little he could and relocated to Hollywood where he formed yet another studio, going into business with this brother. Finally some success...

Until a New York studio stole his workers and intellectual rights for Oswald the Lucky Rabbit right out from under him. Ah, the legal system...

That would have taken me out of the game, but you know Walt. He didn't quit. He picked up a pencil and created his greatest success and lasting legacy: Mickey Mouse. Finally this inspiring entrepreneur got his feet under him. And then the biggest decision of his career: Snow White.

He mortgaged everything. The world was betting against him. He was literally living off his last pennies when the movie hit the silver screen, and blew the world away.

Did Walt stop there? No. Classic after classic, and then if that wasn't enough, an amusement park! Then another one, including an experimental futuristic community (EPCOT--which he never got to finish). Every endeavor was another huge risk, and as he tells his own story, he expected to lose his shirt with each one. This guy was a visionary and I hear his courage and determination every time someone sings, "No matter how you heart is dreaming, if you keep on believing, the dream that you wish will come true."

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Who inspires you to take risks? Do you like Disney? What's your favorite Disney produced movie?