Daniel “Rover” Singer built models for Splash Mountain and Mickey’s Toontown at Walt Disney Imagineering and co-wrote a hit Shakespeare comedy. He died Sept. 22 at 66.
Daniel “Rover” Singer, a former Walt Disney Imagineering model maker who also co-founded the Reduced Shakespeare Company, has died. He was 66.
Singer died Sept. 22 in Los Angeles, WDW News Today reported Saturday, Oct. 31.
The news first came out in September. The production of “The Complete Works of William Shakespeare (Abridged),” the comedy he co-wrote, shared it then, according to Daps Magic. That announcement said he died of cancer after “a nearly year and a half long battle,” Daps Magic reported.
Disney fans may not know his name. Many of them have ridden the attractions he helped plan.
What did Daniel Singer build at Walt Disney Imagineering?
Singer joined Walt Disney Imagineering in 1988 as a model maker and later worked as a production designer, according to WDW News Today. Daps Magic reported that he stayed about 12 years.
Both outlets said he worked on two versions of Splash Mountain and two versions of Mickey’s Toontown. Model makers build small, detailed versions of a ride or land. Designers use them to plan the real thing, down to the rocks and trees.
Daps Magic said Singer carved trees, rocks and hills for those models. It also said he built a scale model of Roger Rabbit’s Car Toon Spin at 1 inch to the foot. WDW News Today placed that model at Tokyo Disneyland and said Singer also worked on Indiana Jones Adventure at Disneyland and “it’s a small world” at Disneyland Paris.
He was proud of how close the models got. One was “so exactly like the finished product that photos of the model and photos of the ride are indistinguishable from each other,” he once said, according to Daps Magic.
He talked about the job as a childhood dream. Daps Magic quoted an old interview where he called joining Imagineering the “culmination of a lifelong goal, harking back to my watching Walt on his Sunday evening TV show.”
While at Imagineering, Singer also co-founded the Flower Street Players, an employee theater group that gave its proceeds to charity, Daps Magic reported. The group took its name from the street where Imagineering is based in Glendale, California.
What was the Reduced Shakespeare Company?
Singer co-founded the Reduced Shakespeare Company in 1981, starting with a half-hour “Hamlet” at California’s Renaissance Pleasure Faire, according to WDW News Today and Daps Magic.
The troupe’s best-known show is “The Complete Works of William Shakespeare (Abridged),” which Singer co-wrote. It packs all of Shakespeare’s plays into one fast, silly evening with a tiny cast.
The show opened at the Edinburgh Fringe in 1987, WDW News Today reported. It later ran for nine years at the Criterion Theatre in London and had three runs Off-Broadway in New York. Theater groups around the world still stage it.
What else did Daniel Singer work on after Disney?
He kept building and kept writing. Daps Magic reported that Singer later made models for Thinkwell Group’s work on Warner Bros. World Abu Dhabi, fronted a pirate band called QuarterMaster and wrote several plays.
His plays include “A Perfect Likeness,” about Lewis Carroll, and “Louisa At Fruitlands,” about Louisa May Alcott.
He also stayed close to Disney history. During the pandemic, Singer worked with former Imagineer Don Carson on a digital recreation of Disneyland’s 1958 version of Alice in Wonderland, WDW News Today reported. Kathryn Beaumont, the original voice of Alice in Disney’s 1951 film, voiced Alice for the project.
Who survives Daniel Singer?
Singer is survived by his husband, Cal, according to Daps Magic. The September announcement from his longtime show began, “It is with unbearable sadness that we inform our amazing fandom,” Daps Magic reported.
Disney and the Reduced Shakespeare Company had not posted public statements about his death that we could find as of Saturday.
Article compiled and written by Kambrea Pratt (editor-in-chief), Derek Gibbs (beat editor) and the Pirates & Princesses newsroom. Pirates & Princesses is part of WebReef Media.
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Hat Tips:
WDW News Today (Oct. 31, 2026), date, place and age of death and his Imagineering projects
Daps Magic (Sept. 24, 2026), the production’s announcement, his career details and quotes
Reduced Shakespeare Company, his plays and the troupe’s history
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