How many times have you seen Frozen? Once? Three times? Fifteen? Once you see it, you can’t help but keep going back for more. Naturally, a movie like that makes an incredible amount of money. Because the movie has already made an incredible profit, so many extras have already been announced including a sing-a-long, a sequel, and even a Broadway musical. We’re all extremely excited to see what Disney has in store, but I’m a little hesitant about a few things concerning the live show.
The beautiful music, hilarious characters, and simply magnificent storyline really make this an amazing piece for the stage. And we know it has the audience. However, will it transfer over to the stage well? The biggest concern on everybody’s minds is the lack of music. The songs written by Disney song-writing veteran Alan Menken are wonderful, but there are very few. There would have to be more music written for the show. Music written in the style of the show, that is relevant, added to an already musical piece is not the easiest thing to create. They’d have to pull it out of thin air. However, whatever Alan Menken writes is brilliant, and that gives us hope! And they also did so with the musical The Little Mermaid, and Newsies so we know adding songs is possible.
The next big concern is the transfer from animated motions, lines, and characters to real life people. Beauty and the Beast is a wonderful musical. Great music, fantastic story. But for some characters, such as Le Fou and Gaston, their relationship is overly cartoonish and cheesy when depicted on stage. The same thing could very well happen to Olaf the Snowman and Sven the Reindeer. Not only, is their behavior a concern, but how they’re going to be depicted on stage? Puppets like Lion King? Odd costumes? Maybe even an actual Reindeer? Okay, so the last one isn’t as likely. But it sure would be adorable!
Next, lets talk special effects. With the movie so effect heavy, the stage musical has to be just as heavy, maybe even a little more. The ice from Elsa’s hands is going to be incredibly hard. How is she going to build an ice palace around her? Especialy considering it needing the ability to disappear from stage quickly so the attention can go back to Anna and Kristoff. The massiveness and elaborateness of the ice palace in the movie will most likely be extremely difficult to recreate.
While there are doubts in the air about the stage adaption of this glorious animated film, Disney must have great plans to bring it to life! I can’t wait to hear more!