“Frozen: The Musical” had its Broadway premiere in March of 2018 at the St. James Theatre in New York City. Unfortunately, the production saw its close just two years later in 2020, due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
However, that did not stop Millard West Theatre director Brooke Phillips from doing what she could to obtain the rights to put on the show on her own home turf.
“We found out about the competition at the International Thespian Festival in 2022,” Phillips said. “I thought, ‘Oh my gosh, my unified group would be so great’!”
The United States of Frozen held a raffle where one high school theatre company from each state and territory would be able to perform the full show of “Frozen: The Musical.”
The privilege, however, did not come without a price.
“Going into we knew we’d need $20,000 to cover the majority of the production costs,” Phillips said. “With the efforts of the community, we were able to reach the goal.
With the costs of implementing a whole new lighting system fully covered, the technical crew needed to get quickly acquainted with their new tools.
“We spent the majority of our time getting the light plot set up,” junior Devin Hoshaw said. “We only had about four rehearsal days of practice before opening night.”
Hoshaw served as head lighting designer for “Frozen,” and under his lead, each performance went off without a hitch.
“It didn’t take us very long to get used to the system,” Hoshaw said. “Timing was difficult at first, but we got it down.”
On the other side of the production, senior actress Nina Mills recalls her excitement with the media attention the show has garnered.
“It was exciting, but I was also pretty shocked,” Mills said. “I didn’t ever expect it to blow up this big.”
Multiple cast members were interviewed by KETV journalists for both written stories and broadcasts, and the show itself was previewed live on the KETV news channel.
Though the show has wrapped, the beautiful performance will continue to impact everyone around the country with the upcoming guest appearance on Good Morning America, as written about by News Director Nathan Buroker.
