Daniel “Rover” Singer, a Walt Disney Imagineer who built models for several Disney theme park attractions, passed away on September 22 in Los Angeles. He was 66.

Reduced Shakespeare Company

Before becoming an Imagineer, Singer was known for shrinking Shakespeare as one of the three founders of the Reduced Shakespeare Company, beginning in 1981 with a 30-minute comedic abridged production of “Hamlet” performed at California’s Renaissance Pleasure Faire. After adding shortened versions of “A Midsummer Night’s Dream” and “Romeo and Juliet” to their troupe’s repertoire, Singer took on the challenge of condensing every single Shakespeare play into one show.

The result was “The Complete Works of William Shakespeare (Abridged),” a 97-minute parody production that has been performed worldwide since its 1987 debut, including multiple sold-out shows at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe that same year. It also ran for nine years at the Criterion Theatre in London’s Piccadilly Circus and had three separate Off-Broadway runs. The show relies on improvisation to keep it relevant with references to pop culture and current events.

Imagineering Career

Singer had always dreamed of working for Disney ever since he’d watched Walt tour the Disneyland workshops on “The Wonderful World of Disney” as a child. In 1988, his dream came true: Singer became a model maker at Walt Disney Imagineering, working on theme park attractions.

He would spend over a dozen years as an Imagineer, working as a model maker and production designer. During his Imagineering career, Singer worked on two Splash Mountains, two Mickey’s Toontowns (including Roger Rabbit’s Car Toon Spin at Tokyo Disneyland), Indiana Jones Adventure at Disneyland, and It’s a Small World at Disneyland Paris.

Singer left Disney in 2020 to pursue personal freelance projects, including writing plays about authors Lewis Carroll and Louisa May Alcott. During the COVID-19 pandemic, Singer collaborated with another former Imagineer, Don Carson, on a digital recreation of the original 1958 Alice in Wonderland ride at Disneyland. Kathryn Beaumont, the British actress who voiced Alice for both the 1951 film Alice in Wonderland and the original ride, returned to the role for the occasion. The four-minute video takes you on a virtual tour of the ride:

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