Q&A with Amanda and Amber Miller
Creators of Disney Vortex
Written by Hannah Benson
Five minutes into talking to Amanda and Amber Miller, I felt that immediate rush of energy and comfort that comes solely from a middle school sleepover. And we were talking over Zoom. Honestly, their power… The sisters are a force to be reckoned with, from their podcast, Fangirl Central to their show, a Forget About Spaghetti Festival hit, Disney Vortex. They remind us all how good it feels to care, sing, dance and that “everyone loves a good jazz square.”
Hannah: Can you tell me about your show?
Amanda: Disney Vortex is a journey through our shared childhood as sisters being black fangirls of Disney Channel and looking at what that means being a black fangirl of predominantly white media. And the duality of loving it, because it’s musical theater, it’s comedy, it’s fun, but also the downside of not seeing ourselves on the screen and internalizing what that means about us.
Amber: And how it was leaking into our daily lives through school, because we also went to a predominantly white school.
Amanda: In the South also. It’s a look on identity, on black identity, queer identity and what the art you love says about you and vice versa how the art you love can be informed by its fans and be better serving to its fans.
Amber: How you can take what resonates and leave what doesn’t when it comes to your passions, your obsessions–whatever pop culture thing you follow. Sometimes fandom can be toxic, but there’s also something really healing about it.
Hannah: When you decided to make Disney Vortex, did you have to go back and research by rewatching the shows?
Amanda: I feel like it’s very trendy to be nostalgic about the early 2000’s–Disney Channel, Twilight, all that stuff– but we never stopped consuming it. We are frequently listening to High School Musical.
Amber: We have our DVD booklet and we still have our DVD player, so when a bunch of stuff was being put on streaming services, like Disney Plus, we had been watching it and had access to it all these years. But also I do feel there was a research aspect, because even though we have been watching this periodically when we’re together–
Amanda: As if it’s water, as if it’s as easy as air.
Amber: Back in October when we were working through it for the first run, we were watching it with more intention, thinking, ‘What was it about this that captivated us?’ And also analyzing what the real story was from adulthood. I’m just gonna use Confessions of a Teenage Drama Queen as an example. We are looking at Lindsey Lohan’s character as a teenager in high school and she’s just working her way through. She’s also very obsessed with a boy band that broke up. I can relate because of One Direction, but I didn’t realize how that foreshadowed what was to be. This was a huge movie from my childhood, it came out in 2004 and then I lived her exact life in high school. It was just very therapeutic to go back and watch all of these movies — High School Musical, The Cheetah Girls — and realize they are just like us, and there’s a reason we liked it and grasped onto it when we were so young.
Amanda: We were putting ourselves in the shoes of literally ourselves at that age, because right now, we are completely different people, but we had to know–what about the fabric of this is so addicting? Why did we react to it this way and why is it still affecting us now?
Amber: Yes and we realized that’s how we speak, and how we approach things. It comes out in our personality types as if its a third parent. It was very healing to write the show, because we were watching stuff we had seen so many times but with a different lens.
Amanda: I feel like we didn’t even break out of the Disney Vortex for real until we were onstage doing the show. There was a moment when we were watching the stuff and writing notes, where I asked, “Amber, are we going to break out of the Disney Vortex on stage?”
Amber: And we did. By the end of the show, I was all, “We’ve cracked the code!”
Hannah: What do you each bring to the show?
Amber: There’s a very good ping-pongy energy where as sisters, we’ve grown up together we kind of just speak the same language, so if one of us thinks something’s missing then we sit with it, figure it out and we don’t have to go too much into in-depth explanation because we already kind of know what we’re talking about. There’s already that background. I think we’ve really found a partnership in writing and developing stories for even just small bits. For me personally, I think I bring a spontaneous energy to the table, I have also been in a bunch of different positions around the industry in production, in events, all these different things. So I can take a step back and see some of what’s missing or what element could be added to help the audience perk their ears up.
Amanda: I went to film school for all of college, so I feel like I settled into this storyteller perspective and I feel like Amber has brought back the fangirl perspective.
Amber: The bling. The little cherry on top. Amanda does so much of the foundation work and I’m all let’s just add this pixie dust here.
Amanda: Remember we are fangirls and since we are fangirl creators, we are making new material, but we also have to remember what the audience is going to emotionally relate to.
Amber: How to present what is really in our heads. We know everything we’re talking about all the time, because of course we do, it’s the two of us and that’s easier. So now it’s about how do we put it onstage, so that the broader audience can see that this is a widely relatable experience.
Hannah: I have a sister and she’s also creative like me, so watching the two of you together makes me realize I need to make something with her.
Amber: Yes! A lot of people have been saying that to us and I’m all, “Yes! Yes! Sisterhood!”
Amanda: It also was not the most obvious thing to us.
Amber: Not at all.
Amanda: Once we started working together, we thought, ‘Why haven’t we been doing this the whole time?’
Amber: Watching The Cheetah Girls, we were all, “This is so cute.” They’re literally singing about being Cheetah sisters and they’re not really related and we’re sitting there thinking, “I wish I had a Cheetah sister.”
Amanda: “I wish I had a creative partner.” For years and years I wished I had a comedy partner, thinking where am I gonna find one?
Amber: Meanwhile, we’re cracking up in the playroom all our lives.
Hannah: That’s the greatest twist. I was wondering, if your show had commercials and you got to do the Mickey drawing with the wand, what would be your move?
Amanda: Regardless, of whether we did it together or separately, I would like to do a chest pump or some type of dance.
Amber: You know how the wand is sparkly blue? I would swipe it around and make it purple and then draw. And maybe dance.
Hannah: What Disney trend was the worst one you picked up?
Amanda: I have to think. I loved the fashion when it was the Limited Too era with the Hannah Montana sparkly scarves. The fashion became horrific and you can see it in 2006 vs. 2007, the fashion in High School Musical One versus Two or The Cheetah Girls One versus Two. Something happened.
Amber: They were trying to get too quirky with it. The worst trend…now I don’t know, but I have a feeling in the 3rd through 5th grade, I probably thought I was doing a bit all the time. You know how mean Miley is to Lily, lowkey if you go back she’s mean. I feel like I was doing that bit.
Amanda: Main character energy on Disney Channel in 2006 to 2010 was to be as mean to your friends as possible as a bit. I think that was probably the worst trend I took part in too, because we also went to an all-girls school and as we know the most toxic version of girl friendships is just putting each other down and then saying, “I’m just joking!”
Amber: I will say the best now is I always wear bright colors, which I believe Mother Raven taught me and also Mother Raven taught the inflection in my voice.
Amanda: I also love her spontaneously breaking into dance.
Amber: Just sing and dance and don’t resist. It doesn’t matter where you are, you could be in the Target line.
Amanda: Music make you lose control.
Hannah: For audience members who have never been to your show, are there ways you would recommend they prepare whether that be emotionally or what they wear?
Amanda: Watch your favorite Disney Channel movie and come dressed as if it’s a middle school sleepover. That emotional place–come into it like that and be ready to heal your inner child.
Amber: Come ready with no shame about how obsessive you were about any part of Disney Channel. Embrace the fangirl energy.
Amanda: Maybe come with a box of tissues.
Hannah: Was there a part when you were making the show that you realized you were healing a part of yourself that you didn’t know needed healing?
Amanda: I won’t spoil it, but we have a brand-new number that we did not have in the first run, that I think was missing. Most of the show takes place in middle school, but I think it healed a little bit of our adolescence–the transition from young pre-teen fangirl into adult fangirl is very hard and full of a lot of shame. Because you are, ‘Oh, I’m not obsessed with that anymore, because that’s for kids.’ I realized a lot of the shame I was still holding onto and the pride element of ‘I am proud of what I love. I’m proud of what that means for me. And I’m proud to be passionate as a fangirl and as an artist.’
Amber: I realized that this all happened in phases: I’m proud about it and now I’m not. Now I’m really sad. Now I’m really loud and proud about it and now I’m not. I really looked at my life thus far, in sections and it will even go in waves, week-to-week and day-to-day.
Hannah: I have always found it interesting that for men, their boyhood obsessions are celebrated as they grow, but for the women the moment we go from girl to woman our childhood faves are infantilized.
Amanda: That’s why our brand is ‘Fangirl Central’ because I see it as gender neutral. We are both gender fluid, we welcome literally all gender identities, but we want to reclaim the word, “fangirl” because it’s been used so much as a diss or a derogatory term, like, “Oh, you’re a little fangirl.” Yeah, I am and what fangirl means is I’m a genius researcher, incredibly passionate and I can learn to do the art that I’m obsessed with, because I’m so obsessed with it, I can genuinely turn it into my own creations. That’s what you’re saying to me when you call me a ‘fangirl’.
Amber: You can apply all the tools and skills you learn from being a fangirl to anything in life. We are very resourceful. It should be a ‘green flag’ to have “Fangirl” on a resume.
Hannah: It means you can get into stuff and you’re not gonna half-ass it.
Amber: It means we’re incredibly passionate and we go for it.
Amanda: Whole ass.
Hannah: If Disney Channel approached you both in the future and they said, “We want to honor the early 2000’s shows and give you a show.” What would it include?
Amber: After we work out the storyline and all the kinks, it would have to be the longest and most intentional casting process ever. We would have to find the natural talent, we would have to find Raven Baxter. What I think Disney’s issue was, they had Raven as the blueprint and then they tried to recreate it with all shows, with all main characters and not everyone can do that formula. And we have to find a main character with their own formula who is just as powerful and captivating as Raven.
Amanda: I would love to find a preteen that genuinely loves music and loves singing and dancing, because I think that’s what they also missed out on. They were literally casting people from Broadway on Disney Channel in our days and they kind of stopped doing that. It became the machine. Annalise van der Pol (Chelsea in That’s So Raven) was a Broadway star. So yes, doing a wide search for a very passionate, young person. And try to have that fabric of fangirling.
Amber: Premise-wise, it has to have the same crazy, youthful energy of whatever we were growing up on. Raven was always in shenanigans. Something that will naturally get the characters into a fun shenanigan every episode.
Hannah: I can’t wait to watch it. What does the future of Disney Vortex look like?
Amanda: Tour. I want to workshop it and get it to a place to tour it. Graciously, The Elysian has given us a place to keep playing with it and make it better and better. I want the tour, stage lights, costumes, production value to be like you’re going on the High School Musical concert or The Best of Both Worlds tour. I want to reach as many Disney Channel fangirls as possible.
Catch the free rehearsals on May 25th, June 1st and June 6th. The final show of this round is Friday, June 16th at 10pm. Get your tickets here!
This performance is part of The Elysian’s VIP: Very In Progress programming.
