New York City – My review of the Frozen musical!

As some of people who read this blog know, Damian and I spent a little interlude in New York city, after my friend’s wedding and before heading back to Brasil. We packed up our apartment and put it in storage (more on those emotions to come), but more importantly, I got to see the Frozen musical and the Mean Girls musical! 

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Note: we are currently in Northeast Brasil. This place is crazy awesome and beautiful but has less crazy awesome internet connectivity. So, I’m recapping a bit of our time in New York until then (packing, etc.) and as soon as we can get our pictures up on the interwebs I’ll share more about our travels on this blog. If you want a sneak peek of the beachy, sand-dune-y gorgeous-ness you can look at our Instagram here.

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Let’s just put it out there. My name is Jyoti and I am a musical theater addict. Second only to being near loved ones, Broadway is the reason that I live in New York City. (There will eventually be a post coming up about how to get tickets to any show on Broadway, even Hamilton!).

When I heard that both Frozen and Mean Girls were coming to Broadway I bought tickets as soon as they went on sale. Damian and I hadn’t even started planning our trip (the idea was percolating in our minds), but I wanted dates with these two Broadway juggernauts on my schedule regardless. And then, when the dates I had purchased tickets for magically ended up being the week after my friend’s wedding, when we were going to be back in the US anyway? Well, it was meant to be.

So, what did I think? I’ll write here about the Frozen musical and then soon I’ll have one up about the Mean Girls musical (which is a little more serious … ooh intriguing I know).

Ok, so what did I think of the Frozen musical?

Let’s get this out of the way – Disney knows how to do musicals, they’ve had blockbusters running for years on Broadway (and touring, and in long-term residencies around the world…) and they know how to develop killer stories, characters and visuals, regardless of medium. Frozen in particular holds an extra special place in my heart. My sister and I are obsessed with the story about sister-love, and I knew there were two people I had to see it with – Poops (sister) and my sister-from-another-mister, Annie (not pictured below because getting selfies in front of signs at musicals is stupidly hard).

We were set to see Frozen on Tuesday evening and the 2018 Tony nominations had actually come out that morning. I was surprised to see the Frozen musical had received very few nominations, and was far outpaced by Mean Girls’ nominations. This was an interesting development, but it still didn’t dampen our excitement for the show.

We got to the theater about 45 minutes before the show was set to start (some of us had to pee urgently) and waited in the lobby a bit before they opened the doors to the seats. I have to say, the Frozen merchandise was on point, and even the bags to carry the merchandise were made of gorgeous, thick, white paper with a white and silver glitter snowflake. Having come straight from a sample sale (you can’t hold me back from deeply discounted Moleskine notebooks and Swell bottles) and you know, having to pack for this trip + everything I own in the next two days, I didn’t purchase anything.

Once we entered the theater we got into our left Orchestra seats, oohed and aahed over the Northern Lights being projected onto the scrim, pored over our Playbills and got ready for the show!

Soon, the projection on the scrim changed to a snowy scene in front of a stage set of Wandering Oaken’s shop. We heard the requisite “turn off your cell phones, etc.” message and then the first musical notes of the show began! After that it was two plus hours of all Frozen … so what did I think?

My grade for the Frozen musical: B+

Overall, I would grade the Frozen musical a B+. It’s lower than I anticipated giving it when I went in, but I still wouldn’t call it a bad grade. I’d say this puts it solemnly in the category of “solid show, I’d see it again if there was a good deal, I’d recommend it to folks who love the movie or Disney or a good musical, but it’s not going to become one of my perennial, long-term favorites”.

What I didn’t like so much about the show

The cheesiness factor. There’s a wide range of how Disney does Broadway musicals – the gorgeous, sophisticated and ground-breaking type (e.g., Lion King); the cheesy and could be in Disney World type (e.g., The Little Mermaid) and in-between (e.g., Beauty and the Beast). I would say this fell in the middle, but closer to Disney World vs. true Broadway. Some of the costumes for Elsa looked more ice-skater than ice-princess and while most of scenery and lighting effects were amazing, at points I thought, hmm, that beaded curtain is a little too college-chic for Broadway. There was a sophistication factor that I thought was lacking in the overall production.

And a naked kick-line? If you do a quick Google search online, you can see that the original song-writing team for Frozen movie, Bobby Lopez and Kristen Anderson-Lopez, wrote 12 additional songs for the Broadway show (doubling the overall score). Most of them were good and helped to move the exposition along. However, there is one song where the chorus becomes “naked” (flesh-colored bodysuits) and uses leaves to cover their private parts. They do a kick-line (a la the Rockettes) and the whole thing just felt out of place and unnecessary to the show. It actually brought down one of the funniest new songs to “what? did that just really happen?” levels.

The trolls became what? Oh the trolls. They were so weird and so cute in the movie. Spoiler alert: in the Frozen musical they become weird, scary beings called “Hidden Folk”. They looked like big, hairy monsters and had long and hard tails, which all just seemed to be too far from their original cute-ness. It’s really too bad, because to me “Fixer-Upper” is one of the songs that translates to Broadway the best, but it was just too un-cute with the new visualization of the trolls. 

What I liked a lot about the show

Race-blind casting. Hallelujah Lin-Manuel Miranda. I’ll say it again, hallelujah to Lin-Manuel Miranda. At this point most everyone who knows anything about Broadway knows that the majority of Hamilton’s cast is not white. Miranda has taken everything about what an actor/actress for certain roles “has” to look like and turned it on its head. What is even more positive for Broadway is how quickly Miranda’s casting is having an effect elsewhere. In the Frozen musical, the actress portraying Anna and Elsa’s mom is black (the actor playing the dad is white, as are the two children), the actor portraying Kristoff is black and the chorus has all varieties of races. I’ll write more about this in my Mean Girls musical review, but major props to the Frozen musical casting team for this!

The acting and the voices. Let’s just say, as much as it is my dream to be on Broadway, I would never want to have to play a role, live, that one of the best Broadway voices of all-time played in the Frozen movie (you go Idina Menzel, you go). But Cassie Levy kills it and she sounds great singing “Let It Go”. I also loved the actor who played Olaf (he reminded me so much of Josh Gad – one of my all-time favorite Broadway people) and the girl who played little Anna. The whole cast was strong but these three performers themselves would be reasons for me to go see the show again.

The audience. There are some Broadway shows where the audience itself becomes almost like another cast member. The place where I see it happen the most is The Book of Mormon. Having seen it multiple times, I love anticipating the newbies’ reactions at certain key moments in the show, and those reactions enhance my experience of watching the show as well. The same is true of the Frozen musical. We were sitting behind a little family – daughter (3-ish), son (5-ish), dad and pregnant mom. The little girl had brought her Elsa doll with her and was so overjoyed the entire time. She held the audience around her captive with her singing and excitement over the show, and I’m sure others sitting around other little kids had similar experiences. Personally, Frozen the movie and its songs have been a great way for me to connect with nieces and friends’ kids and I think, in this show, all the kids in the audience help us adults experience the Frozen musical through the magic of their eyes.

The show ended with a fun bang. Elsa made it snow in Arendelle (for fun), and the theater made it “snow” on the audience as well (using tiny pieces of paper). It was a very cool visual effect and we had fun taking pictures in it after. Sad for the cleaning crew though, eh?

I’d say overall I left the Frozen musical happy, smiling and having enjoyed a fun, nostalgic night out on Broadway with my two best girlies. I wouldn’t say I left with my mouth open in awe as I did after seeing The Book of Mormon, Dear Evan Hansen or a couple others, but I guess that’s why some shows are once-in-a-lifetime industry-changers and other are just good, solid Broadway. And there’s nothing wrong with that!