Daniel Rover Singer
he him his
Altadena, California
Founder of the Reduced Shakespeare Co. Former Disney Imagineer. Playwright, Performer, Director, Producer, Designer
[contact]
Biography

DANIEL ROVER SINGER has been a theatrical impresario from the moment he looked up the word ‘impresario’ in the dictionary. He co-founded his first company, General Amazement Theater in Santa Rosa, California, when he was just 17.  Upon his return from studying at the Guildford School of Acting in England, he became a director at the original Renaissance Pleasure Faire, where he founded the subversive Reduced Shakespeare Company, whose three-man farce The Complete Works of William Shakespeare (Abridged) enjoyed a record-breaking run in London’s West End and has since become one of the world’s most popular comedy shows.  In 1989 Daniel hung up his doublet-and-hose to design theme park attractions at Walt Disney Imagineering, where he also co-founded the Flower Street Players, an in-house theater company for Disney employees.  Since 2000, Daniel has been a freelance designer, writer and event producer in Los Angeles, where he sings with and directs the pirate band QuarterMaster. His 2013 play A Perfect Likeness imagines a revealing meeting between literary giants Lewis Carroll and Charles Dickens.  Now in development: Modern Man, about a rapidly-evolving family of prehistoric cave dwellers; Get a Room, a sex-comedy about two couples sharing a hotel room at a fantasy convention; The Radicalization of Louisa May Alcott (adapted from her true story Transcendental Wild Oats); and Dizgruntled, which looks at both sides of the 1941 labor dispute that divided the Disney Studio.

Agent Information

Jonathan Mills @ Paradigm (212) 897-6400 jmills@paradigmagency.com 

Plays

Modern Man: A Prehistoric Fable
by Daniel Rover Singer

Meet Dig, a caveman with motivational issues.  He’d rather chill out with some ceremonial herb than hunt for meat, frustrating his super-intelligent adoptive family.  But after rebellious Sparky rejects him at her coming-of-age ceremony in favor of a suspicious stranger, Dig realizes he must radically evolve to earn the trust of his tribe and save them from disaster.  A visceral, playful look at the evolution of language, spirituality, and morality, “Modern Man” depicts a familiar family on the brink of the modern era.  (Some sexual content.)

Cast:
7 Characters. These early humans can be ANY RACE. WOMEN: DOOZY (48) the eccentric spiritual head of the clan. SPARKY (16) Doozy’s bright but stubborn granddaughter. ABLEY (32) Sparky’s pragmatic mother. DEER-SPIRIT, a supernatural vision. MEN: DIG (20) a dim-witted hunter. FUTZER (33) Sparky’s inventive uncle. SCHMUCK (25) a mysterious stranger.
GET A ROOM
by Daniel Rover Singer

To save money, two couples—one straight, one gay—share a hotel room at a fantasy convention weekend. Everyone’s boundaries get tested—and stretched—in this hilarious, intimate, bedroom-farce-style exploration of open relationships and polyamory. A romantic comedy for modern adults; includes sexual situations and brief nudity.

Cast:
5 CHARACTERS: (1 woman, 4 men) Joelle, 40, Paul’s fiancée, straight. Paul, 40, Joelle’s fiancé, straight. Mutley, 20s, Randy’s partner, pansexual. Randy, 40, Mutley’s partner, a gay trans-man. Stash, 20s, a hotel bellhop & waiter, gay. ALL ROLES MAY BE ANY RACE
DIZGRUNTLED
by Daniel Rover Singer

Fantasy and reality clash when a movie director, hired to helm a documentary about how cartoons are made, finds himself at the world’s most famous animation studio in the midst of a polarizing labor strike. Suggested by real events at the Disney Studio in 1941, DIZGRUNTLED takes a hard look at the growing pains of creative companies.

Cast:
Historically these characters were white, but any-race casting is encouraged. MEN: ALFRED WERKER, 45, a freelance film director. WALT DISNEY, 30-45, producer of animated cartoons. NORM FERGUSON, 28-38, animator of “Pluto”. ART BABBITT, 34, animator of “Goofy”. WOMEN: MRS. BENCHLEY, 50, a fictitious wife. HELEN BLUME, 30, an artist (these two roles can be doubled). ENSEMBLE ACTORS: COMMIE RABBLE-ROUSER, STUDIO GUARD, HUMPHREY (25, an uptight studio page), ARTISTS/STRIKERS, HUAC CHAIRMAN (offstage voice)
A PERFECT LIKENESS: Carroll Photographs Dickens
by Daniel Rover Singer

Reclusive photographer Lewis Carroll invites his hero, celebrity novelist Charles Dickens, to sit for a portrait, tumbling two very different Victorians into a baring of souls beneath a harsh, revealing spotlight.  "So lovely and entertaining that you want it to be true."  --Lynn Felder, Winston-Salem Journal 2013

Cast:
Historically two British white men, but alternative race casting acceptable. Charles Dodgson aka Lewis Carroll, 34 (nervous, uptight & fastidious). Charles Dickens, 54 (gregarious & overbearing).
STEAMBOAT MICKEY
by Daniel Rover Singer

In spite of daunting obstacles, a bankrupt but ambitious young artist moves

from Kansas City to 1920s Hollywood determined to find success making

animated cartoons. Based on real events in the life of Walt Disney.

Cast:
6 CHARACTERS (4 men/1 woman w/doubling) WALT DISNEY, 17-26, an ambitious cartoonist ROY DISNEY, 26-34, Walt’s brother, a bank teller UB IWERKS, 18-27, a shy, prolific artist LILLY BOUNDS, 25-29, a young studio assistant CHARLIE MINTZ, 30-32, a New York cartoon distributor WILFRED JACKSON, 22, an apprentice animator
LOUISA@FRUITLANDS: The True Story of Louisa May Alcott's "Transcendental Wild Oats"
by Daniel Rover Singer

1862: 29-year-old Louisa May Alcott has successfully published some lurid adventure stories.  But when challenged to write something more personal, she resists.  Recalling how her quirky family had made the optimistic mistake of joining an experimental farm commune when she was an imaginative but rather feral ten-year-old, Louisa reflects on how much she matured, as a person and a writer, as a result of that traumatic but empowering summer among the philosophers at Fruitlands. 

Cast:
CHARACTERS: (11 actors: 7 men, 3 women, 1 child) *All characters are white except Hiram Jones, African-American **Color-blind casting always recommended LOUISA MAY ALCOTT, 10, precocious, bright & wild BRONSON ALCOTT, 44, an esoteric philosopher, teacher & father RALPH WALDO EMERSON, 40, a sage philosopher HENRY DAVID THOREAU, 26-44, an enigmatic philosopher JOSEPH PALMER, 54, a progressive farmer & father NANCY PALMER, 58, a spirited wife & mother HIRAM JONES, 38, a diligent farmhand, formerly enslaved CHARLES LANE, 43, a charismatic British reformer WOOD ABRAHAM, 35, an eccentric farmhand ABBY ALCOTT, 43, wife, mother & activist SHERIFF (played by Thoreau) LOUISA MAY ALCOTT, 29, a vivacious writer

Successes

"The Complete Works of William Shakespeare (Abridged)" premiered at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe in 1987.  Since its epic run in London's West End 1995-2004 it has become one of the world's most popular comedy shows.

"A Perfect Likeness" was published in 2013 and there are productions every year.  UK Premiere July 2021, followed by a tour of southeast England in September 2021.