Casey's Corner has a new pianist, and she has been playing Walt Disney World since 1990

By entgrove · September 17, 2026

Carol, a cast member of 36 years, has taken over the ragtime piano at Casey's Corner on Main Street U.S.A. Her Disney career started in 1990 at Pleasure Island's Comedy Warehouse and has since run through the Rose and Crown Pub at EPCOT, the Hoop-De-Doo Musical Revue at Fort Wilderness and the Grand Floridian, which she still calls her favorite room to play.

The ragtime piano at Casey's Corner has a new player, and she is anything but new to the resort. Carol, a cast member of 36 years, has taken over the bench at the Main Street U.S.A. hot dog counter after a Walt Disney World career that started in 1990 on a very different stage: the Comedy Warehouse at Pleasure Island.

Thirty-six years in, and it still feels like the first day of school

Carol described the move to Casey's Corner as equal parts thrill and nerves, which is a more honest answer than most new-role announcements get.

"Casey's Corner is such a joyful, high-energy place, and I'm thrilled to be part of it. At the same time, it feels a little like the first day of school. Even after playing piano since I was four years old, starting something new still comes with excitement and a few nerves. I've spent a lot of time preparing for this moment, learning new songs and revisiting favorites I haven't had the opportunity to play before. I'm excited to bring that music and energy to our guests."

She was reading music at two, before she was reading words, after her family pushed her toward it. Central Florida is home; she grew up with the resort down the road and then went to work inside it.

From the Comedy Warehouse to the Rose & Crown

Carol's Disney story opens in 1990 at Pleasure Island's Comedy Warehouse, the improv club in the nighttime district that has since become Disney Springs. She performed there nightly. The club closed with the rest of Pleasure Island's venues in 2008, and by then she had already started collecting rooms across the property.

Since the Comedy Warehouse, she has played the Rose & Crown Pub in EPCOT's United Kingdom pavilion and the festival stages at that park, the Hoop-De-Doo Musical Revue at Pioneer Hall in Disney's Fort Wilderness Resort & Campground, and Disney's Grand Floridian Resort & Spa, which she names as her favorite of the lot. That is a fairly complete tour of the places at Walt Disney World where somebody plays live for a room full of strangers every night.

Ragtime is the brief, Alan Menken is the detour

Casey's Corner takes its name and its whole personality from Casey at the Bat, the 1888 baseball poem Disney animated in 1946, and the piano set has been part of the place for as long as most guests can remember: turn-of-the-century ragtime played while the queue for corn dog nuggets snakes past. Carol is learning new material for it and dusting off songs she had never had a reason to play.

Off the ragtime songbook, her own favorites run to Alan Menken, the composer behind The Little Mermaid, Beauty and the Beast, Aladdin and, the one she singles out, The Hunchback of Notre Dame. If you want to hear something, she is the kind of player who would rather you asked.

"I love music with a passion. I've been doing it my whole life. Honestly, I can't remember a time when I wasn't playing the piano. And I love Disney. The positive energy that the Disney brand brings is so powerful. As a musician and entertainer, you sometimes forget the impact you can have on people. Here, through live performance, we get the chance to create those personal connections and touch people's lives in a really special way."

Tinker Bell is the job description

Asked where the approach comes from, Carol points at a character rather than a musician. Tinker Bell, the tinker fairy who arrived in Peter Pan in 1953 and has been a Magic Kingdom fixture ever since, is her favorite, and she reads the character as a working method.

The rest of that thought runs: "If somebody's already happy and has a special song they want to hear, I love being able to play it for them. Tinker Bell is sassy; she spreads joy, and pixie dust. That's what I hope to bring to guests through my music." Whether or not a pianist can fix your afternoon, it is a better mission statement than most.

She frames the whole 36 years the same way, as luck that has not worn off: "Growing up with Walt Disney World right here in Central Florida and then having the opportunity to become part of it, while sharing what I love most, music, with guests who love Disney, is something I never take for granted."

How to catch a set, and what Disney has not said

Casey's Corner sits at the top of Main Street U.S.A., on the Central Plaza end where the street opens out toward Cinderella Castle, so the piano is a two-minute detour from the route almost every guest already walks twice a day. There is no ticket, no reservation and no dining requirement; it is live entertainment included in park admission, the same as a Main Street Philharmonic set or the Dapper Dans.

What Disney has not published is a schedule. The announcement names Carol and the role and stops there, with no set times and no indication of which days she plays, so catching her is still a matter of timing your walk up Main Street rather than planning around it. If you are heading to Magic Kingdom in the next few weeks, the move is simple: slow down at the top of the street, listen for the piano, and ask for the song you actually want.