Meredith Baldwin practically grew up in the shadow of the Matterhorn. Well, the Disneyland version. She grew up in Southern California, just 15 minutes from Disneyland.
Her parents took Baldwin and her siblings to the theme park often. All four children worked at the park.
The youngest of the four, Baldwin became a Disney performer. Her brother worked in attractions while one sister in worked in guest relations and the other sister worked in retail.
“My brother met his wife there, and one of my sisters met her husband at Disneyland,” she said. “We’re a Disney family.”
Her family has visited her while she worked in other parks. “We share the love of all things Disney,” Baldwin said.
While “home” is Southern California, she rents a storage unit in Orlando.
Baldwin has always loved watching Disney movies.
“When ‘The Little Mermaid’ came out, I was 6 years old,” Baldwin said. “I watched it 95 times.”
Then came “Beauty and the Beast.” “I liked her so much, and now I get to play her,” she said.
Baldwin plays Belle in “Disney Live -- Mickey’s Magic Show!,” which makes a stop at the Columbus Civic Center Friday for one show.
For the last two years, she’s played Cinderella in a Disney Live show, touring Asia and Europe.
The difference in the two Disney Princesses is vast, Baldwin said.
“So many little girls grow up idolizing Cinderella and dreaming of Prince Charming. I like Belle a lot more. She dreams not of a man, but of having an adventure. And instead of a man saving her, she saves the Beast.”
Right out of high school, Baldwin went to work for Disney and has worked at Disneyland in California, Tokyo Disneyland, Hong Kong Disneyland and Walt Disney World in Orlando. She hopes to work at Euro Disney, outside of Paris, one day.
This tour, which lasts eight months, ends in April.
“This is different than what I have experienced before,” she said.
The main difference is she doesn’t have as much time off. She’ll get five days off at Christmas, so she’ll get to go home to California. Then on Dec. 26, she’s back doing the show.
Calling from Fayetteville, N.C., Baldwin said the company travels by bus. The “bus mom” is also the dance captain, and she makes sure everyone is on the bus before it leaves.
No one has been left behind, Baldwin said.
“Thank goodness, not on our tour,” she said. Baldwin loves her job.
“I’ve been to 14 different countries and a lot of people can’t say that,” she said. “I’ve met the president of Toyota when I was at Tokyo Disneyland, and I filmed a promo for our show as Cinderella in Turkey.”
It’s not just dressing up in a costume and being in front of an audience, she said. When they tour overseas, they have to learn the script in the language of the country.
“Turkish was the most difficult language I had to do,” she said. “It has to be right.”
A translator works with the script and then works with the actors who have lines.
In this show, Baldwin doesn’t have very many lines, so even if it goes overseas, she doesn’t have to worry much.
“It’s a lot of fun,” she said. “My favorite is when the illusionist levitates Jasmine 10 feet in the air. He makes me appear as Belle out of nowhere, too.”
The illusionist, Brad Ross, won the 2010 International Magicians Society’s Merlin Award for Best Family Entertainer, in September.
“It was in Newark, N.J., and we all got to be there for that,” Baldwin said.
Baldwin has worked for Disney for eight years and Feld Entertainment for three years. When she hangs up her traveling shoes, she plans to go back to school to get her degree in kinesiology (science of human movement).
“It takes several years to get a degree in that,” she said. “I’d like to finish that. And then I want to be a trainer for a football team.”
