Gigi Johnson: I’m glad to be catching Mark in Texas, but Mark, you said that you have offices and or
you have creative spaces in two other places? Yes.
Mark: My creative team, I mainly draw from New York City, and I will usually meet up
there in Ken Billington’s office. He has a wonderful office right on in the theater district. And then I also do all my recording in Los Angeles.
Typically there’s East West, United, there’s some various studios on Sunset Boulevard. They’re just classic great studios that I
record there. I love United Space.
That’s such a great space.
It really is. It’s just wonderful.
And these are just classic studios that Frank Sinatra
recorded it in, the Mamas and Papas, all sorts of vintage great TV themes were done there.
And I want to work with the best people on all my projects, and that’s where I can find
them and record them. So we’re finding you in the realm of what current adventures, Mark?
What are you currently
up to?
Well, I’ve just opened three different Christmas shows out at Six Flags over Texas in Arlington,
Texas. And that’s ending my journey this year.
I I’ve actually produced and written 10 different
shows for that theme park this year.
So it’s been quite a busy year. I also have a couple
of shows running down at Six Flags Fiesta, Texas, a long running Majesty of Christmas
and Looney Tunes Christmas.
And then of course, I’ve got Christmas shows running in Branson
and Pigeon Forge and Myrtle Beach with Dolly Parton’s both her Stampede and Pirates Voyage
shows.
So a lot of people probably have been to your shows, didn’t know they were your shows and
thought, I wonder how in the world this happens. I mean, I think a little bit that they go
to it or they wonder.
Yeah.
Well, hopefully they want to, you know, both, you know, they go to and I mean, really
what it’s about is if I can help, you know, produce a wonderful time for them and their
family, hopefully enjoying the show, then I’ve done my job. I grew up in Southern California.
So for me, a similar metaphor was I worked at Disneyland
for a couple of years.
So much creative production. I was instead a write operator, not a fabulous
performer there.
But you get that people, you know, see that as such of the background
of their lives.
I’m really excited about talking about how you’ve ended up in this and the
many other things that you’ve done. Now, where did you grow up?
Did you grow up in Texas?
No, both my parents are native Texans. So I grew up more in St.
Louis, Missouri.
But
we spent a lot of time in Texas. What got me down here, there was a great music school
on North Texas, UNT up in Denton.
And that got me to this area.
And I started getting,
you know, work immediately and I’ve stayed here. My first, actually, my first job was
with Six Flags in the, what they called Six Flags Mid-America at the time.
I I think it’s
just called Six Flags St.
Louis now. But that was one of my first work experiences and really
in entertainment was I got a job with the crew on one of the shows and then I accompanied,
I was a piano accompanist for two of the different shows and did their audition tour
and a couple of different things.
So that just kept growing, which gave me a start.
I’m going to back you up even further. So growing up in St.
Louis, were your parents
creative?
Were they performers? Were they?
You know, my dad was not, but my mom actually taught speech and drama.
And so growing up,
my sister and I would always, you know, right after school, we would go to play rehearsal
and our musical rehearsal. And I watched a lot of rehearsals as a kid, you know, and
I feel that that has, you know, is in me.
It’s registered ever since.
And so a lot of
things I think come naturally to me or it makes sense. But really, I think I’ve just
always been around theater production for my whole life.
And had parents that were supportive because some people have the journey story that they
love being creative, but mom and dad said, you must be an engineer.
You must be a lawyer. You must be a, and didn’t get the creative journey.
Yeah, I did have that a little bit, you know, because I’m sure my parents were, you know,
how are you going to make a living?
And but they were very supportive in with piano lessons. I had a great high school experience.
There was a lot of, I could take music theory in
high school.
And so I got a great training ground. And then, and I started really getting
work as a pianist, really when I was still in high school.
So, you know, my parents couldn’t
say a lot because I was actually making money.
You know, it wasn’t just a hobby. It was into
hobby.
So I did major in music in college, and I switched around a couple of different
ways.
I just once I discovered writing and arranging, I thought, well, this is something
I can spend long periods of time doing. And that’s what became my focus.
That’s what
got me down to UNT to study and led to my career.
And that’s continuing to be a bit rare for kids to realize that they can compose or even
have music theory in high school, that oftentimes that’s not even part of the mix, which is
one of my big bugaboos with all the wonderful things that happen in high school music. But
oftentimes that they both skip theory and they skip learning how to write in their own
voice and their own music.
Yeah.
And it was just a good time. You know, it was before there were so many stringent,
core educational demands.
And so, yeah, I took music theory and jazz theory.
There was a
great orchestra in my high school that I got to do some piano solos with. I also learned
cello and so, yeah, it was just a well-rounded education with high school.
And then I took two
sets of private lessons.
One was classical piano, one was jazz piano. So, you know, I just
had a great training ground and that definitely gave me a head start on.
But before you ended up at the theme park world, what did you think you were going to do with
it?
I didn’t know for sure. You know, I just I knew that this was music came very quickly to me.
And it’s something I really enjoyed.
And so I don’t know, I kept pursuing it. I really didn’t
even discover writing and arranging until I was in college.
And, you know, but once I did,
it’s like, because I was advanced enough with piano to that my teacher said, you need to spend
four to five hours a day practicing or you’re really not going to get much better because
you’re at this level.
And that was very hard for me. But then once I started arranging and
writing out arrangements, I thought, oh, you know, I could do this for six, eight hours a day,
that would not bother me.
And so I just went after it.
You know, I knew what level I had to work at. And then certainly transferring to UNT, really, you know, I was with some phenomenal students
there and from around the world.
And that gave me the incentive and the drive to, you know, be as
excellent as I could be.
So how did you end up you mentioned earlier that you ended up then doing heading into the theme
park world? How did that step happen?
Well, what happened was I at the first college, I went three years to a Millican University that’s
a small private school in the middle of Illinois.
And I made a deal with four great singers there. I said, look, I’ll do all the arranging if you all agree to rehearse.
And we did our own program.
And, you know, we were on our own little group and we performed at homecoming and different events. And then I actually we did a recital at the end of the year that I was I taped that audio and presented it to the
the VP head producer at Six Flags to say, hey, look, I’ve been writing and arranging and I want you to hear this.
And the timing was good as I transferred down to Denton.
I they had an opening at the Six Flags over Texas show. So for the music director and to write those, it was a
Southern Palace show and a smaller saloon show.
And they offered that opportunity to me really during my senior year of college.
And then the following year, it expanded to four or five parks and it just
expanded quickly. That’s a big journey coming right out of college.
It was, you know, and in many ways it was hard because I was, you know, I was younger and like, who’s this kid?
And, you know, there were some challenges to it. But I, you know, you’ve got to take opportunities when they arise.
So
I got some great training at UNT quickly and
just kind of, you know, embraced it and kept getting opportunities.
At the same time, I felt, well, the theme park business is so fluky. You know, you have a lot of work one year and then they’ll run the same shows over the second year and you’re sitting around.
And hyper seasonal too, right?
So a big chunk of their life is the holidays and summer. Yeah, and
so I got involved with
educational publishing.
So what that is, is Coral Arranging for
this print publishing and they, I worked with a company called Hal Leonard Print Publishers, they’re the world’s largest publisher out of Milwaukee.
And I started getting opportunities to arrange for them. And I’ve done that ever since.
And, you know, you don’t make a ton of money on one arrangement, but you, it’s like developing your catalog.
And
so I now have like about 3600 coral products in print and available and sell
probably around half a million copies of music a year around the world. Wow.
So that’s been a steady income.
I was going to say they’re almost evergreen. I mean, I’m assuming that some pop, because there’s popular songs going on,
but it’s really having in this world of non-evergreen music an evergreen catalog.
Oh, most definitely.
And it’s interesting, you know, my best selling coral is
Bohemian Rhapsody that I actually arranged, I think in 1996
when it came out in Wayne’s World, you know, at first. And it has
continued, I think I’m well over 400,000 copies.
I I mean, it just sells 20 or 30,000 copies a year.
And yeah, so there are some definitely evergreen titles. And that’s what you as an arranger you look for.
And if you can freshen them up and
so, so yeah, and Hal Leonard is great.
I mean, they have, I have access to all the Disney titles. So, I mean, that’s tremendous.
I I really, every title except anything from Warner Brothers.
It’s EMI, Al Jobyt, Sony. It’s a tremendous amount of music I have access to, to arrange.
Wow.
So, so that is just a lovely part of each year or that’s something that blossomed and you’re letting kind of
mature while you do other adventures or? I continue to do about 15 to 20 arrangements a year.
So you keep
supplying the catalog and it’ll vary depending on like this year will probably be a little bit less because I had so much writing to do
with Six Flags, but then next year I’ll bump back up and it’s
you know, and then
teachers know
what I do and they hopefully look for my name or dealers do and I’m very conscious of
things like voice leading and
I want my arrangements to be make your, you know, the choir sound great and if it doesn’t that’s my, that’s my fault.
Well, I know what voice leading is, but our audience may not all know what voice leading is.
So I just
composition class last week where they’re trying to explain voice leading to a bunch of students. I was kind of laughing.
Voice leading, how would you?
Well, yeah, voice leading is
it makes it easier for singers to sing, okay, so
instead of having a part
that’s harder to sing, but
you know, you see you make it as melodic as you can the harmony parts while you so you’re still trying to achieve great harmonies,
but make it as
singable as possible and then that…
So the poor altos and tenors aren’t stranded someplace and
cursing you out in the middle of rehearsal.
Yeah, well and
you know poor altos, they’re the ones who kind of always get that fourth extra note and
there’s, but you you count on them being great musicians. So
impatient, impatient, absolutely.
You have a lovely interweaving of adventures and for a lot of our guests they kind of bounce
and you’ve threaded, I mean in many ways you’ve got a beautiful long run of doing sort of
iterative adventures that have continued.
How long have you been with Hal Leonard now? Well, almost 40 years.
I I mean that’s such a long relationship in this space.
Yeah it is, you know and a lot of times I tell young people is the importance of being
helpful to everybody along the way because years ago I just started arranging for Hal
Leonard and I had one of my instructors say, oh I’ve got this grad student and he needs
some extra work and I think he’s really excellent and so I brought him on.
He helped fill in some scores, you know that’s back when we still worked in pencil, and he
helped fill in some scores and taught some vocals for me at my theme park shows and then
today he is actually the president of Hal Leonard and has been for the past 10 years.
He’s got a gentleman named Larry Morton and yeah so you never know people you help out
along the way what their careers will do and you know there have been times that’s been
helpful that Larry and I go way back and he was you know come time for a contract. I mean that’s a helpful thing to have given work to the company president.
So how has your work expanded and changed in this time?
So you come into it used to have to do it of course you know pencil and staff lines. So you’re now living in Sibelius?
Actually Finale software and yeah they’re a competitor but the publishers or the typesetters
prefer Finale and yeah so I’ve been with on Finale since 1996-97 and you know haven’t
stopped and that’s so you get you know very fast at that and but I think for me in my
career what’s expanded is I think back there was a time I was just doing creating music
soundtracks for theatrical shows or theme park shows and Warner Brothers bought the
Six Flags parks and at that time they said well we only want to deal with turnkey producers
outside show producers so they disbanded the internal Six Flags show production group
I worked for you know and I thought well gosh what am I gonna do and I thought well maybe I
should become an independent turnkey producer you know so.
So let me start my own company.
Yeah so I thought well I mean just you know but it was kind of because I wanted to keep working
and you’re just like okay I’ll figure it out I’ll figure it out and so sure enough I got an
opportunity to produce one show the following summer and then that really took off that’s when
I formed WOW Entertainment and that’s launched me into the show production business and so that
that really changed the orientation of my business at that point.
So you have gone from being a employee to sole proprietor to now having full-time and part-time
staff to make all of these things happen you started out telling us how many different shows
you launched this year?
Yes that’s exactly right I have some full-time and then some part-time I have a network of
creative vendors from costumers lighting designers musicians that I hire as needed so it
it operates a lot like an advertising agency you bulk up when you’ve got the accounts when
you lose an account you hunker down and so yeah it’s very similar to that so there isn’t a lot
of elements of running a business you know you’ve got to be aware of the bottom line and
projections what you know what kind of money you need to keep going and
and you’ve had to pick up new skills right so you were doing theater more full theater
and then you went into piano and music composition but now are putting on whole shows so what other
hats did you have to learn to put on and what might have been some trip wires you might have
tripped on as you were learning to build even more capacity?
Well I would say
I mean there there have been a lot you know I you know working with contracts and understanding
contracts and what they they really mean and what you know certain clauses and things you need to
ask for accounting certainly of you you not only want to project what your income is going to be
on a project but then you have to keep accounting along the way to make sure that you you meet you
met your projection so and they’re a little bit you know those are boring things but you got to
do it to stay in business and because a lot of times the shows I produce it’s you know particular
park or facility will say tell us we want this show yes tell us what it’s going to cost and then
that’s the money you you’re under contract to do to do you know deliver this show for that amount
of money and so if you don’t do your job correctly you don’t make that amount of money you you know
so so that but that’s okay you know my dad was an accountant and I you know I’ve had good friends
who’ve gotten MBAs that I kind of helped you know so I got around it enough that I was you know able
to figure those things out and then you know just experience you know having done this so long and
worked I’ve written probably over 150 theme park shows wow and multiple larger dinner arena
attractions and not only produce music but also like produce those shows that you learn along
the way that you things don’t it’s like you’ve kind of oh I’ve been through this before or I
ran into this before and so it’s it’s a craft in what you’re developing and the more you do it the
more you develop your craft and you know I work with a gentleman named Ken Billington on my lighting
design and Ken’s a Tony Award winner he’s you know lit Chicago and was most recently New York
that was on Broadway and he said you know at his point in the career he said there’s nothing really
you can throw me that I haven’t seen before and you know just so all sorts of things like we were
working on a Halloween show and I said well what about if we made the floor red you know that would
that would be great and he goes oh no it lights horribly you know it like he’s actually he’s
lived that dream before he knows that’s your problem it sounds great but no that’s not going
to work so it’s like okay you know you listen to the guy and then learn from that has the technology
of what you’re expected to do changed I think of consumers and people coming who are used to
looking at let’s say dancing with the stars and seeing the you know the video floor or are people
expecting different things because the tech of everything’s changed?
Most definitely and I mean and you’re you know with not only how I write music but we how we
produce it you know combination of synthesized instruments along with live instruments
now you know like we’re in a final tech week or for production of a show it’s we have time code
that you know so then so the one time code runs the music but it also runs the video
runs lighting cues so it’s very technical and but you know it also enables you to do pretty amazing
things visually so yeah so you get you just you get used to it you learn along the way and I’ve
always uh took taken a philosophy of hiring the best people possible working with the best people
around me and versus a lot of times you know people can hire their friends or I’ve worked
with so-and-so but I’ve been a little more ruthless in that of just no I’ve got to work
with the best people because that’s a reflection on me so and it’s it’s paid off it’s been successful
to do work that way.
When we started out we talked about the fact you’re in Los Angeles and New York
and in Texas but you’ve come to record in LA so what parts of all of that now fit together
you’re recording the pre-recorded elements of your shows or you have a whole other line of
fabulousness that you’ve got going on?
Well what I do I actually lived in Los Angeles
for about five years but went through the Northridge earthquake. Hey great time to be in LA yeah.
Rodney King riots and yeah I think the the when I left was when OJ Simpson was going down the
highway in the in the white.
It was time to go if he’s gonna run the Bronco down to I gotta get out
yeah so but what I I did learn so much about the entertainment business and and the importance of
networking and how to schmooze and all these things and and then I always found how the
musicians were just so incredible and the singers were so incredible and the best people
you know accumulate in Los Angeles and so what I did was I just I ended up moving back to Dallas
and which was much more affordable to run an office and I had just picked up a producing job
with Six Flags Over Texas so it made sense I was right in their backyard and but I continued to go
to LA and what’s what’s happening now technology wise is that we’ll have pre-production on track so
a lot of times I’m doing a demo that is with electronics and maybe the vocals you know if
we’re building the show trying it out and then I’ll take those those sessions those layouts and
then I bring those to Los Angeles and you know now it’s on a hard drive and then you record
real instruments and real vocals on top of that then I will bring it back to Dallas where I’ll
have it mixed and you know we we tweak it and fine tune it here now sometimes if with technology
it’s been nice I’ve been doing this for like the last 10 or 15 years where if I’m too busy
I might just send my audio engineer out to LA and then we work with a combination of programs that
I can actually sit at my desk in Dallas and produce a recording session with the engineer in LA so
so that’s that’s been a real time saver and money saver and so I have those options
that I can do that and and really now that’s you know so many voiceovers and things work that way
all around the world in fact.
Some of them are spurred by the pandemic by a lot of people having
voiceover studios not just in their closets but in expected to have them in their homes and to be
submitting tapes that way so it’s changed the whole well that and Netflix wanting translations
of so many shows that there’s so many little micro recording studios of people doing voiceover work
here in LA so interesting times.
Oh yes it is it is you know particularly you see that all over
in LA you know there’s a isn’t that there there’s a realtor it just focuses on homes with studios I
think in Los Angeles.
Oh wow. Yeah houses that rock or something like that I don’t know.
Oh
that’s fun I like that.
So so do we leave any adventures out we’ve covered lots of things with
you what what have we not mentioned of your adventures? Well I one of the fun aspects of my
adventure has been the opportunity to work with Dolly Parton because she has a series of these
dinner arena attractions in Pigeon Forge and so it’s the Dolly Parton’s Stampede and the Dolly
Parton’s Pirates Voyage so I’ve I’ve worked off and on with that company and many times you know
Dolly will write a new song or will so we I get an opportunity to work with her in the recording
studio which has just been a tremendous thrill.
Sometimes you know she has a home in LA so well
record her in Los Angeles you know she that in the that works out well and so that that’s been
a big thrill and and then I would say the other kind of exciting thing I’ve gotten to do was I
actually co-wrote the title song for Disney’s 102 Dalmatians starring Glenn Close.
Oh wonderful.
And I you know I really haven’t had that much chance to work with Disney shows but my first
opportunity believe it or not was the word went out in LA that they Disney was looking for a dog
song you know to open this movie and a lot of people were submitting but I knew somebody you
know who knew the publisher and she and I co-wrote a song and it followed it all the way through and
it was going to be the end title and they moved to
the opening title credit and that was, you know, my first entry into Disney was like
driving right onto the film production lot, you know, and interfacing with them.
And so
that was a real thrill in my career.
And I haven’t worked with Disney since, so it was a little odd
chapter, but one I’m very thankful for. Very cool.
What do you see heading forward?
I mean, you’re in a business that is robust in a changing music world,
where you’ve got great relationships. Is this a expanding space or you’re going to get into these
immersive performance spaces or is this just sort of a happy, wonderful level of life?
Well, I would say I’m, you know, this year has been tremendous and kind of really helped kick
start me back into show production and turnkey producing.
And I really, really enjoy it. And I
love the team that I’ve assembled to help me.
So I’m really hoping to exploit that even more.
You know, there’s a merger happening with building Six Flags and Cedar Fair that should go into place
in the first of March. And so they’re going to combine, have 27 parks.
Wow.
So, you know,
I’m making a lot of efforts to reach out to them. And, you know, I think things really,
until the merger happens, it’s hard for anybody to commit.
But I’m real excited about that
opportunity.
And, you know, it’s hard right now on, I was looking at one time of trying to
look at writing a Broadway show and getting mounting that. But Broadway is so backed up
with so many great properties, just looking to get into the city that I’m seeing now an opportunity
of large production shows, but not on Broadway.
You’re looking for other venues for them,
you know, around the country to produce for.
And then what I’m trying to do with my creative team
is access the creative talent out of New York, because it doesn’t get any better for live show
production than the creative talent you have in New York. And just using that, so kind of having
a Broadway experience producing, but looking beyond, you know, the theater district of New York City.
That sounds fabulous.
Now, everything has been upside down from the pandemic. And then some of
the realignment wasn’t just coming back.
It’s like, you know, having clogs in the arteries now where
everyone’s wanting to do things.
And the economics have changed so gigantically. And people are
wanting to put all the postponed shows and projects out.
So it’s an interesting time.
Yeah, it really is. Really is.
So we are nearly at the end of our adventure here.
What have we not talked about that you want to make sure we talk about? Well, I would just say this.
What we haven’t really talked about, but is a key to
my focus and what I want to do is that I’m really trying to bring joy and entertainment to people.
And as a producer, as I mount a show, I will sit there, like I kind of usually get a seat on the
side of the theater and just look at the audience and try to read the audience as much as I can. And that’s my job is to bring them joy.
And, or, you know, if I mentioned with singing in a choir,
is if I have a successful choral arrangement and the kids sound great, then all the parents think
that’s the greatest teacher and the kids feel positive about themselves and performing music.
So ultimately, that’s my focus. That’s what’s most important to me is bringing joy and
entertainment to as many people as I can.
And hopefully that great arrangement also makes
someone go, gosh, this was a great experience.
Maybe I’d like to go into singing or music when
I grow up. This has been a positive part of my life.
Exactly.
That’s yeah, that’s what I,
you know, that’s like the subconscious or really what I’m working to do all the time. Bringing joy through all sorts of, I mean, you probably touch more people through your music
than most other people in the music space, because so much of your work is getting licensed into
schools and out to people on a regular joyful basis.
You know, and I spend a lot of time on
YouTube and because it’s now with Hal Leonard, my music is reaching around the world and like a
Christmas suite, which was more of a concert work that I had written, you know, I listened to or
looked at a broad production or being performed in South Africa or in Japan or Southeast Asia
or Germany.
You know, it’s just fascinating to see performances of your music in all parts of the
world, you know, so it’s a cool thing.
It’s a cool thing. Mark, if someone would, who would you like
to reach out to and how would you like them to reach out?
Well, I think probably the easiest way on my website, we mentioned is an email called info,
I-N-F-O at wow entertainment dot net.
That’s W-O-W entertainment dot net. That’s the best way to
reach out to me.
All those come directly to my email and I mean, it could be somebody who has a
venue, who maybe wants to do a production.
I have tremendous catalogs of shows that I could,
you know, offer to them and let’s talk, let’s get creative and see how we can work together. Certainly performers or people right now, like I’m really looking at a lot of specialty acts
to people that trying to bring that into a musical theater setting with story.
And so yeah,
anybody who feels inclined, if you’ve heard this and you want to reach out to me, I’m more than happy
to get back with you and I will, you know, I’ll, I read every email that comes to me.
That’s the
great way to reach out. Very cool.
Mark, thank you very much for joining us and I’m looking forward
to somewhere in this Christmas season.
We’re doing this right now in December, 2023
of hearing your music somewhere in all of these different adventures. Well, thank you so much.
I I really appreciate it.
