Frozen at Children's Theater Company
I first fell in love with the theater when I was seven years old. I had seen live shows before, however, let’s be fair-- taking a child under seven to Little Shop of Horrors and The Headless Horseman may not be the best way to initiate a child into a life of theater. Plants that eat humans are not okay. I still am not a fan of the show. But at seven, my first-grade class when to the Children’s Theater Company in Minneapolis to see Dr Seuss’ The Five Hundred Hats of Bartholomew Cubbins (my favorite Seuss book. Even at seven I wanted a plot not just words about dogs and cats). The magic that struck me about the performance was the ability of the theater to constantly keep a hat on the actor’s head. The conflict in the story is that the young boy can’t remove his in front of the King. I was hooked. Upon touring the backstage on a field trip provided by my gifted and talented teacher later in my schooling, they would not give up their secrets—endearing the theater gem in Minneapolis to my heart
. The joy of returning to CTC for Frozen was seeing the sheer joy of performing live on the young actors playing Young Anna and Young Elsa. They were loving every minute of it, along with the other actors—both equity and non. The role of Elsa, which of course has to deliver the iconic Let it Go was portrayed very well by Gillian Jackson Han, who lives in New York and came to Minnesota to play Elsa after a year on the road in Dear Evan Hanson. She was icy as she portrayed the struggle in contrast to Julia Ennen’s portrayal of Anna as her lively sister. We saw the understudy for Kristoff, Bradley Johnson, and to be honest he was amazing! My sister and I both really liked his voice. You could tell it took him a minute to get into the roll, but he rocked it! The piece de resistance of the show, of course, was Olaf. The puppeteer was excellent with the costume, but I think the character was lacking the endearing qualities of Josh Gad’s iconic performance. Together, the ensemble and their joy at performing once again endeared the stage in my heart and even inspired me to think about jumping back on a stage…any stage.