From KCRW Santa Monica and KCRW.com, this is The Treatment.

Welcome to the treatment, which you can also hear at KCRW.com.

My guest, Thomas Schumacher, who runs Disney theatricals, has a sense of the theatrical.

I think going back to his time with the Olympic Arts Festival in Los Angeles in 1984,

with a moment of excitement that permeated all of L.A. about what was going to happen next.

That surprise you only get from live theater attracted him to the theater. He's been with

Disney since 1990. He's brought shows such as The Lion King to Mary Poppins to Aida to the current

success Disney is now having Peter and Starcatcher and Newsies. First of all, Tom, thanks so much

for being here. I couldn't be happy to see you again. But I want to ask you about that sense of excitement

because I remember being in L.A. for that first time in 84,

and there was just this kind of electricity that you never quite get in New York

because theater is still such a new experience for people in Los Angeles

and to see people shape something before their eyes

and have it come from all

over the world was a really, I think, transformed a moment in that city.

Well, if you think about comparing the two, New York is so astounding because everywhere you

turn, there's something huge, something fantastic, something theatrical, some beautiful piece

of art.

And L.A. has a very rich now, the latter half of the 20th century history of the museum movement and all this building. But what happened in 84 was this extraordinary man named Robert J. Fitzpatrick, who was the president of Cal Arts out in Valencia.

Bob Fitzpatrick was asked by Peter Eubroth to create the cultural component of the Olympics.

It's part of the Olympic Charter,

but the Olympics never did it quite like L.A.

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