I'm joined by the multitalented Mark Brymer, a creative entrepreneur with hands-on expertise in turning musical concepts into spectacular shows.  Mark brings a wealth of experience — from arranging a vast collection (400,000) of choral pieces with Hal Leonard to producing dazzling shows in theme parks. We’ll get a deeper look at his journey from high school passion to creating WOW! Entertainment and its creative team. Alongside his success, Mark's story is one of adaptation, learning, and consistent building. 

Guest: Mark Brymer, President, Wow! Entertainment

Working in New York City, Los Angeles, and Dallas, turnkey producer Mark Brymer has carved out a singular profile as the man who can arrange almost anything in entertainment. In his successful, decades-long career, the music producer, theatrical producer, author, arranger, orchestrator, and composer has stayed relevant and kept busy in the ever-shifting entertainment industry by seeing change as an opportunity for growth.

Most recently, when Six Flags Entertainment Corporation became interested in the explosion of immersive/in-person experiences, they called Mark. Now, he’s premiering bringing the captivating Halloween experience, Dr. H.H. Holmes' FREAKSHOW at the Six Flags Over Texas theme park. Mark’s groundbreaking Dr. H.H. Holmes' FREAKSHOW promises to raise the bar for theme park theatrical productions by employing Broadway talent in the production.

Over the years, Mark has parlayed his gifts as a musical arranger and composer into a vastly varied career in the entertainment industry. He is a global trailblazer in both the children’s music education and entertainment industries with such clients as McGraw-Hill, Disney, Warner Bros., Hal Leonard, Music Theater International, and Rhino Records. Mark co-wrote and produced the title song, “Digga Digga Dog,” for Disney Film Studios’ 102 Dalmatians, starring Glen Close. He’s written and produced over 150 live production musical shows for Six Flags theme parks. In addition, he’s written, produced, and mixed scores for the dinner/arena attractions Pirate’s Voyage and Dolly Parton’s Stampede. Since 1995, Mark has headed up the full-service music and live theatrical show production company, WOW! Entertainment, Inc.

The through line in Mark’s diversely-accomplished career is his passion for family-oriented entertainment. It’s a path he stumbled upon after discovering as a college piano major that he loved arranging, and he embraced the full spectrum of arranging and performing opportunities that came his way. Eventually, Mark landed a gig playing piano at theme parks, and this led to a myriad of opportunities in the theme park theatrical space. To steady his income while working in the mercurial world of theme park productions, Mark made inroads in the choral market. He became an exclusive staff choral arranger for Hal Leonard in 1983.

Links:

• info@wowentertainment.net
• https://www.markbrymer.com/
• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/mark-brymer-b22411170/
• Hal Leonard: https://www.halleonard.com/biography/102/mark-brymer

We had the pleasure of having people from all over the place,

and I'm glad to be catching Mark

in Texas. But, Mark, you said you have

offices and or you have creative spaces in two other

places. Yes. 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 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.

So I love United space. That's just 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've actually produced and

written ten 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,

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 think, is

that a little bit that they go through it or they wonder?

Yeah, well, hopefully they want both.

They go to. And really what it's about

is if I can help 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 ride operator, not

a fabulous performer there, but

people 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

work immediately. And I've stayed here,

actually, my first job was with Six Flags in

what they called Six Flags Mid America at the time. 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 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 back you up even further.

So growing up then in St. Louis, were your

parents creative? Were they performers? Were

they. My dad was not, but my

mom actually taught speech and

drama. And so growing up,

my sister and I would always. Right after school,

we would go to play rehearsal and our musical

rehearsal. And I watched a lot of rehearsals

as a kid. And I feel that that

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 because I'm sure

my parents were, well, how are you going to make a living? But they were

very supportive with piano lessons, and I had

a great high school experience. There was a lot of. I could take music

theory in high school.

So I got a great training ground,

and I started really getting

work as a pianist, really, when I was still

in high school. So my parents couldn't say a lot because I was

actually making money.

It wasn't just a hobby. It wasn't a hobby. So I did major in

music in college, and I switched around

a couple of different ways. 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. 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. 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

I just had a great training ground. And that definitely gave me

a head start on, 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.

I knew that 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.

But once I did, because I was

advanced enough with piano

that my teacher said, you need to spend four to 5 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, I could do this four, six, 8 hours a day. That would

not bother me. And so I just went after it.

I knew what level I had to work at.

And then certainly transferring to UNT,

really, I was with some phenomenal students there

from around the world. And that gave me the

incentive and the drive to 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

at the first college, I went three years to a Milliken

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

we were our own little group, and we performed at Homecoming and different

events. And then we did a recital at the

end of the year that I taped that

audio and presented it

to 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,

they had an opening at the Six Flags over Texas show

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. Oh, wow. 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, in many

ways it was hard because I was younger and like, who's this

kid? And there were some challenges to it,

but you've got to take

opportunities when they arise. So I got

some great training at UNT

quickly and just kind

of embraced it and kept getting opportunities.

At the same time. I felt, well, the theme park business is so fluky.

You have a lot of work one year and then they'll run the same shows

over the second year and you're sitting hyperseasonal too.

Right. So a big chunk of their life is the holidays

and summer. Yeah.

I got involved with educational

publishing. So what that is, is coral arranging for

print publishing. And I work 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 don't make a ton of money on one arrangement,

but it's like developing your catalog. I

now have like about 3600 choral products in print

and available and sell probably

around half a million copies of music a year around the world.

Wow. 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. My best selling

choral is Bohemian Rhapsody

that I actually arranged, I think, in

1996 when it came out in Wayne's World

at first. And it has continued. I think I'm

well over 400,000 copies. I mean, it just sells 20 or

30,000 copies a year.

There are some definitely evergreen titles and that's what you, as an

arranger, you look for and if you can freshen them.

Hal Leonard is have I have access to all

the. So I mean, that's

tremendous. Every title except anything from

Warner Brothers. It's EMI

jobit, Sony. It's a

tremendous amount of music I have access

to, to arrange. Wow.

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. I continue

to do about 15 to 20 arrangements a year. So

you keep supplying the catalog and

it'll vary depending on. 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 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 make the choir sound great.

And if it doesn't, that's my fault.

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. Da.

That'S harder to sing, but.

You. Make it as melodic as you can, the harmony

parts. So you're still trying to achieve great harmonies,

but make it as singable as possible.

The poor altos and tenors aren't stranded someplace and

cursing you out in the middle of rehearsal. Well,

poor Altos, they're the ones who kind of always get that

fourth extra note. But you count on them being

great musicians. Throw them a

melody every so often. Absolutely.

So you have a lovely

interweaving of adventures 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. Yeah.

That's such a long relationship in this space.

Yeah, it is. 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 score. 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 ten years.

Yeah. Got a gentleman named Larry Morton.

You never know people you help out along the way, what

their careers will do. And there have been times that's been

helpful that Larry and I go way back and he

know, come time for a 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 commented. It used to have to do, of course,

pencil and staffline.

So you're now living in

Sibelius, actually, finale.

Finale Software finale. Yeah, they're a

competitor, but the publishers or the typesetters prefer

finale. I've been on finale

since 1996 97 and

haven't stopped. So you

get very fast at that.

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 in 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 Flag show production

group I worked for. And I

thought, well, gosh, what am I going to do? And I thought, well, maybe I

should become independent turnkey producer.

Let me start my own company. Yeah. So I thought,

well, but it was kind of because I wanted to keep

working. And you just be 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 really changed

the orientation of my business at

that point. So you have

gone from being an 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 operates a lot like an

advertising agency. You bulk up when you've got the accounts.

When you lose an account, you hunker

down.

It's very similar to that. So there isn't a lot of

elements of running a business. You've got to be aware of the bottom

line and projections, what kind of

money you need to keep going. 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 tripwires you might have tripped on as you

were learning to build even more capacity?

There have been a lot working with

contracts and understanding contracts and what they

really mean and certain clauses

and things you need to ask for

accounting. Certainly 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 met your

projection.

Those are boring things, but you got to do

it to stay in business, because a lot of times the shows I

produce, a 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're

under contract to do to 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.

But that's okay. My dad was an accountant, and

I've had good friends who've gotten MBAs that I kind of help. So

I got around it enough that I was

able to figure those things out and

then just experience having done this

so long and worked. I've written probably over

150 theme park shows and

multiple larger dinner arena attractions,

and not only produce music, but also produce those

shows that you learn along the way that

it's like you've kind of, oh, I've been through this before, or I ran into

this. So

it's a craft in what you're developing. And the more

you do it, the more you develop your. You

know, I worked with a gentleman named Ken Billington on my lighting

design, and Ken's a Tony Award winner. He's lit

Chicago and was most

recently, New York. New York, that was on Broadway.

And he know at his point in the career, he

said, there's nothing really you can throw me that I haven't seen.

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? That would be great. And

he goes, oh, no, it lights horribly. He's actually done.

He's lived that dream. He knows that surprise. Yeah,

it sounds great, but no, that's not going to work. So it's like,

okay, you listen to the guy and 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 video

floor. Or are people expecting different things

because the tech of everything's changed? Most

definitely with not only how

I write music, but how we produce it.

Combination of synthesized instruments

along with live instruments.

Now we're in a final tech

week or for production of a show. We have

time code. The one time

code runs the music, but it also runs the video,

runs, lighting cues. So

it's very technical,

but it also enables you to do pretty amazing

things visually.

You get used to it. You learn along the way. And I've always

taken a philosophy of hiring the best people possible,

working with the best people around me, versus

a lot of times 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.

It's. It's paid off. It's been successful to work that way. And

we started out, we talked about the fact you're in Los Angeles and New York

and in Texas, but you come to record in LA,

so what parts of all of that now fit together? You're

recording the pre recorded elements for 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. Great time to be in LA. I

know, and the Rodney King riots. And I

think when I left was when OJ Simpson was going down

the highway. It was time to go. He's going to run the Bronco

I got to get out of. Yeah, so.

But I did learn so much about the

entertainment business and the importance

of networking and how

to Shamus and all these things.

And then I always found how the musicians were just

so incredible and the singers were so incredible, and

the best people accumulate

in. So what I did

was I ended up moving back to Dallas,

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, but

I continued to go to LA. And 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 it's with electronics and maybe the vocals.

We're building the show, trying it out, and then I'll

take those sessions, those layouts, and then

I bring those to 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 we

tweak it and fine tune it here. Now,

sometimes with technology, it's been

nice. I've been doing this for the last ten 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. So that's, that's been a real

time saver and money.

So I have those options that I can do that.

And really now so many voiceovers and things

work that way all around the world. In fact, some of them

spurred by the pandemic, by a lot of people having voiceover

studios, not just in their closets, but

expected to have them in their homes and to be

very much 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

and people doing voiceover work here in LA. So interesting times. Yeah.

Oh, yes, it is. It know, particularly you see that all over

in a, isn't that there's a realtor

that just focuses on homes with studios, I think

in Los Angeles. Yeah. Houses that

rock or something like that. I don't know. I like that. Yeah.

So do we leave any adventures out? We've covered lots of things with you.

What have we not mentioned of your adventures? Well,

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.

So it's the Dolly Parton Stampede and the

Dolly Parton's Pirates Voyage. So

I've worked off and on with that company and many know

Dolly will write a new song. So I

get an opportunity to work with her in the recording studio, which has just

been a tremendous, you know,

she has a home in LA, so. Well, I'll record her in

and that works out. So that's

been a big thrill.

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 Dalmatian starring Glenn

Close. Wonderful. 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 Disney was looking for a dog song.

Open this movie. And a lot of people were submitting, but I

knew somebody 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 it, the opening title credit.

And my first entry into Disney was like

driving right onto the film production 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 OD chapter, but one I'm very thankful

for. Very cool. What do you see heading

mean? You're in a business that is robust

in a changing music world where you've got

great relationships. Is this an

expanding space? Are you going to get into these immersive

performance spaces, or is this just sort of a

happy, wonderful level of life?

Well, I would say

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.

There's a merger happening between Six Flags and Cedar

Fair that should go into place in the 1 March. And so they're going to

combine have 27 parks. So

I'm making a lot of efforts to reach out to them. And

I think things really, until the merger happens, it's hard for anybody

to commit. But I'm real excited about that opportunity,

and 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 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 the Theater district of New

York City. That sounds fabulous. No, everything has been upside

down from the pandemic. And then some of the realignment wasn't just coming

back. It's like having clogged 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. So we are nearly at the

end of our adventure here. Okay. 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 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.

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 exactly positive part of my

life. Exactly.

That's like the subconscious or really what I'm working

to do all the time. Bringing joy through all sorts

of. 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.

And I spend a lot of time on YouTube, and

because it's now with pal Leonard, my music is

reaching around the world. And like a Christmas suite,

which was more of a concert work that I had written, I listened

to or looked at a production

or being performed in South Africa

or in Japan or Southeast

Asia or Germany. It's just fascinating

to see performances of your music in all parts of the

world. It's a cool thing. It's a

cool thing. Mark, if someone who would you like to

reach out to you and how would you like them to reach out?

Well, I think probably the easiest way.

On my website, we mentioned just an

email called Info

info@wowentertainment.net.

That's W-O-W Entertainment. Net.

And 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 offer

to them. And let's talk, let's get creative and see how

we can work together. Certainly performers

or people. Right now I'm really looking at a lot of

specialty acts, people that trying to bring that into a

musical theater setting with story.

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. I read

every email that comes to me and that's the great way to reach me. 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, Gigi. I really appreciate it. Excellent.

You.