Darryl Pickett

Standard British, Northern English, Irish, Scottish, Cockney, stuffy official, wily butler, harried innkeeper, New York, New Jersey, New England, Bostonian accents, American Southern, Texan, wise guy, oil tycoon, good ol' boy, uptight politico, sideshow huckster, Hollywood player, evil villain, comic book hero, Australian, New Zealander, Russian, Parisian, Middle European, vampire

Darryl Pickett is an actor and writer who has spent much of the last 15 years providing show scripts and attraction concepts to the Walt Disney World Resort. His voice currently narrates the Walt Disney World Railroad steam train, which offers a circle tour of the Magic Kingdom. He is also the voice of the Dependable Robotic Liason (DRL) at the Space Mountain interactive queue. He has appeared in promotional radio spots for the Sleuths Mystery Dinner Theater, where he regularly appears as an actor, and he also recently completed a repertory season at the Orlando Shakespeare Theater. He has written numerous plays, and performs his own musical compositions under the name flippyshark. Other voice work has included demo recordings for Kodak, Disney's Animal Kingdom and Disney Cruise Lines. Darryl has been a working actor for the last fifteen years, a writer for the last twenty-two years, and a lifelong singer, musician and performer. He was a show writer for Walt Disney Imagineering from 1996 through 2001, and continues to provide scripts, concepts and voices for Disney to this day. A one-time music major at University of New Mexico, Darryl has sung with the Santa Fe Opera, the Chorus of Santa Fe, and the Central Florida Lyric Opera. His interest in theater has led to performances with Orlando Shakespeare Theater, plays written and performed for the Orlando International Fringe Festival, broadcasts on Albuquerque Jones Intercable, and productions for the Disney cast member theater organization STAGE. At home, Darryl records and produces material on a Mac, using Logic Express and GarageBand. He currently uses a Blue Snowball for quick demos, and a Shure KSM27 cardioid condenser for serious work. He starts most musical projects on a Yamaha Tyros 3 Arranger Workstation (for its terrifically realistic instrument voices). He also has access to an enormous variety of professional stages and studios in the Orlando area. Darryl supplements his writing, acting and musical interests with near constant reading - literary and genre fiction, history and current affairs, world religions, skepticism and humanism, magic, art, photography, travel. He has spent time in Japan and developed an affection for its culture and history, which was useful to the extensive writing and consulting he provided for Epcot's Spirited Beasts: Animal Sprits in Myth and Manga, a gallery show at the Japan pavilion in World Showcase. He has relished working on recent projects that involve historical research, such as the collection of presidential articles and artifacts at The Hall of Presidents and Epcot's National Treasures, and the recently re-written and revitalized tribute to Walt Disney, One Man's Dream, at Disney's Hollywood Studios. He has also provided show scripts and song lyrics for the Disney Dream cruise ship, Mickey's Not-So-Scary Halloween, educational exhibits at the Atlanta aquarium and Baltimore Aquarium, and copy for Sea World and Dollywood theme parks.