Casey’s Corner has a familiar face stepping up to the piano at Magic Kingdom.
What changed: Carol, a 36-year cast member, recently took her place behind the piano at Casey’s Corner, bringing decades of musical experience and Disney storytelling to the heart of Main Street U.S.A., per the Disney Parks Blog.
She’s been playing since she was four. She started reading music at two. Most of us were still working on walking.
“Casey’s Corner is such a joyful, high-energy place, and I’m thrilled to be part of it. At the same time, it feels a little like the first day of school,” Carol told the Disney Parks Blog. She says she spent a lot of time preparing, learning new songs and revisiting favorites she hadn’t had the chance to play before.
Who is the new Casey’s Corner pianist?
Carol is the Central Florida native now anchoring that piano, and her Disney story started in 1990 at Pleasure Island’s Comedy Warehouse, where she performed for guests nightly. Since then she’s played all over Walt Disney World: the Rose & Crown Pub, festivals at EPCOT, the Hoop-De-Doo Musical Revue at Disney’s Fort Wilderness Resort & Campground, and the Grand Floridian Resort & Spa, which she names as her favorite.
The ragtime classics at Casey’s Corner are the newest line on that resume.
What does she play at Casey’s Corner?
Those ragtime classics are the core of it, but Carol also works in her own favorites. Composer Alan Menken is high on that list, including music from The Hunchback of Notre Dame. And if a guest has a special song they want to hear, she loves getting to play it for them.
“I love music with a passion. I’ve been doing it my whole life,” she said. “As a musician and entertainer, you sometimes forget the impact you can have on people. Here, through live performance, we get the chance to create those personal connections and touch people’s lives in a really special way.”
Carol says her goal is to bring joy through music, and her model for that is Tinker Bell. “She tinkers with things and fixes things that are broken, and I like to do that with my music,” Carol said. “If somebody is sad, I want to make them happy.”
More than three decades in, she’s still finding new ways to do it, one song at a time.
Shark Take: It’s a walk-by moment, so keep an ear out on your way down Main Street.
Source: Disney Parks Blog
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