From Hawkeye to the Hyperion Theater: “Rogers: The Musical” Is Live at Disney California Adventure

As Paste covered in April, “Rogers: The Musical”—the faux Broadway musical that Clint Barton (Jeremy Renner) uncomfortably suffered through in the Disney+ streaming series Hawkeye—is now an actual, one-act musical theater production playing at the

Hyperion Theater in Disney California Adventure Park. The all-singing, all-dancing extravaganza features live performers telling the Marvel Cinematic Universe’s compressed take of Steve Rogers, a.k.a. Captain America, and his heroic journey. And of course, seminal characters from his life, including Peggy Carter, Nick Fury and other select Avengers.

Starting June 30, performances will be staged Tuesday through Saturday, several times per day until August 31, 2023. Guests can check Disneyland.com and the Disneyland app for show times during its summer run and make reservations for seats.

Paste attended the media press day and World Premiere of the stage show, and can attest that, if you’re a fan of theme park stage shows, the MCU and especially Chris Evans’ version of the Steve Rogers character, “Rogers: The Musical” is worth adding to your Disney California Adventure Park itinerary. 

The half-hour show is jam-packed with eight musical numbers: “U-S-Opening Night,” “I Want You,” “Star Spangled Man,” “What You Missed,” “Save the City, End of the Line,” “Just One Dance” and “Rogers: The Musical Finale / Save the City (Reprise).” The original songs range from unabashedly earnest (“I Want You” and “Just One Dance”) to heightened comedy (“Save the City” and “What You Missed”). The best number is the Hawkeye originating “Save The City” written by Marc Shaiman and Scott Wittman, which is plucked right from the screen to the stage in its presentation and energy. 

After our preview, there was a Q&A featuring some of the creative team behind “Rogers: The Musical” including book writer Hunter Bell, Grammy-winning composer 

Christopher Lennertz (who also scored the Agent Carter series), Dan Fields, Executive Creative Director at Disney Live Entertainment, Sarah Kobayashi, Choreographer at Disney Live Entertainment and Dave Bushore, Vice President, Franchise Creative and Marketing at Marvel Studios.

As to the big question of how one scene from Hawkeye eventually turned into a whole live theme park show, Fields said they were watching the episode and his immediate reaction was “I want to see the rest of it.” 

Field continued, “And then we realized, ‘Hey, we’re Disney Live Entertainment, we can do that!’ So that’s what we set out to do and pulled out this amazing team of collaborators…to make it come to life.”

Kevin Feige, the president of Marvel Studios, is also a very public Disneyland stan, so the relationship between Disney Theme Parks and Marvel Studios is already tight with Avenger Campus. Bushore, who is a direct conduit between the studios and the Parks team said that when Fields came to them about “Roger: The Musical ” it was a no brainer. 

“There’s no end of opportunity for Marvel and Parks, so we’re always talking about the next thing or big ideas or what we could do,” Bushore said of how they communicate on blue sky ideas. “And so it’s very easy to do these types of things. It’s not,” he added as a caveat. “But it’s easy because the collaboration is so good. And because the [MCU] can move in so many different ways, this doesn’t seem like an outlier, right? It’s easy to say, ‘Let’s think big, and let’s do that.'” 

Hunter Bell was tasked with condensing the major plot moments in Steve Rogers life down to 30 minutes of material, which he did with director Jordan Peterson. “Jordan laid this incredible foundation and we just got to jump on Zoom calls and get together and build this,” he said of the early creative process. “Luckily, it was called ‘Rogers: The Musical’ on Hawkeye, so that let us know that we’re gonna focus on Steve and we’re gonna focus on Cap. And great love stories make great musicals and so much great musical theater is based on a love story. We honed in on that even so while Cap is having all these adventures in all the films, there’s a compass and there’s Peggy. When we honed in on that love story and on Cap and Peggy, I think that kind of sealed the deal. So, yeah, a lot to fit in half an hour, but I think we did a pretty good job.”

And if the show isn’t enough, guests can eat limited edition food inspired by the musical as selection food locations at Disney California Adventure Park. There’s a “Rogers: The Musical” popcorn bucket that comes with red, white and blue kettle corn outside the Hyperion Theater and other collectible merchandise. Between the food, the collectibles, and the show itself, “Rogers: The Musical” is the kind of multimedia, cross-franchise synergy that Disney excels at. If you’re at California Adventure between today and August 31, it’s worth your time.

​​Tara Bennett is a Los Angeles-based writer covering film, television and pop culture for publications such as SFX Magazine, Total Film, SYFY Wire and more. She’s also written books on Sons of Anarchy, Outlander, Fringe, The Story of Marvel Studios and the upcoming Avatar: The Way of Water. You can follow her on Twitter @TaraDBennett or Instagram @TaraDBen.