Frozen on Broadway

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Disney Duster
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Re: Frozen the Broadway Musical

Post by Disney Duster »

I guess the hidden folk idea for Elsa's powers is ok.
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Re: Frozen the Broadway Musical

Post by JeanGreyForever »

I'm not really a fan of the new origin. I didn't care for the trolls but they made sense because they're part of Scandinavian folklore. The Hidden Folk I don't understand at all. Are they some hidden race of an offshoot of humanity that has special powers or abilities? Sounds like mutants or the Inhumans to me, especially the part about one of them leaving her "race/folk/species/etc" to marry a human. Actually that part sounds more like classic mythology but I don't think the Hidden Folk are meant to represent gods. At least they're giving Elsa some sort of origin because I was never fond of how she never had one, but I don't particularly care for this one. It sounds too contrived but I guess that's nothing new to the Frozen franchise.
Disney's Divinity wrote:Iduna (*cough*Idina*cough*) and Agnarr.
Disney's actually been using those names for the King and Queen for a while now, way before the musical. I thought Iduna fit since it's been the name of a goddess. Originally they were called Idun and Agdar, but then Disney changed them to be less Anglicized.
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Re: Frozen the Broadway Musical

Post by unprincess »

I think the hidden folk are based on the hulder from Scandinavian folklore, especially since they mention that the costumes include a tail...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hulder
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Re: Frozen the Broadway Musical

Post by JeanGreyForever »

unprincess wrote:I think the hidden folk are based on the hulder from Scandinavian folklore, especially since they mention that the costumes include a tail...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hulder
Thank you for sharing that. I much like this idea now that I know that the Hidden Folk weren't just created for the sake of the musical but actually based on Norwegian folklore. I'm not familiar with Norwegian fairy tales so it's interesting that they've appeared in many of them.
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Re: Frozen the Broadway Musical

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The new poster is the best one they've made. I love it. It's perfect. Elsa as the "R" is inspired.
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Re: Frozen the Broadway Musical

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Disney Duster wrote:The new poster is the best one they've made. Elsa as the "R" is inspired.
What new poster? :?
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Re: Frozen the Broadway Musical

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Disney Duster wrote:The new poster is the best one they've made. I love it. It's perfect. Elsa as the "R" is inspired.
LaughingPlace changed it to the right poster. That was a rough draft.

I personally don't like the Queen as a hidden folk, but it's a teeny weeny detail, so whatever
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Re: Frozen the Broadway Musical

Post by taei »

I saw the very last show in Denver.... and it was probably the worst musical I had ever seen on stage..

If anyone wants me to elaborate on what I thought about it, let me know!
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Re: Frozen the Broadway Musical

Post by unprincess »

^lol I wanna know! Lets face it, this could be the worst musical ever made and its still gonna make a buttload of cash. :lol:

Thank you for sharing that. I much like this idea now that I know that the Hidden Folk weren't just created for the sake of the musical but actually based on Norwegian folklore. I'm not familiar with Norwegian fairy tales so it's interesting that they've appeared in many of them.
yeah, kinda wish the movie had used them instead of the trolls.
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Re: Frozen the Broadway Musical

Post by taei »

OMG where to even begin!

For those of you who like the idea of the new updates trolls... Sorry to burst your bubble but they honestly stand out more than the trolls in the movie.. They added this idea that the queen used to be one of them, but that never amounts to anything. And to be honest... They are more African than Norwegian.

However, I will say this.. The best parts of this musical were in the first 10-15 minutes.. The work done on the girls' room is really nice, especially with the beds. The costumes for the king, queen, young anna, and young elsa are also wonderfully done. However, everything after is bad.

The fact that they had the trolls just randomly show up and climb through the window was weird... I would say that the ONLY good thing that this musical added to the story is this idea that Anna and Elsa can resume their friendship as soon as Elsa learns to control her powers. I mean, it was kind of obvious, but it was nice to see it literally motivate Elsa during the coronation scene.

But as soon as Anna started singing "For the First time in Forever"... I knew that this was going to be a sh*t show. So the whole first verse is Anna standing around in her underwear while her servants dress her up... Yep... She's in her underwear, standing still for the first verse. Which is funny, because I thought that her coronation outfit seriously lacked the wonderful details that it had in the animated movie, so it wasn't even impressive when they put it on her... And she wasn't standing behind a curtain or something... She was just standing stage center. In fact, even Elsa's costume had the same problems. No detailing. And now we begin with one of the biggest problems in this musical... And it's that people just stand and sing.. They barely move. They just stand there. And it doesn't help that the sets are very minimalistic.. They rely a lot on the frame/border of the stage that they project stuff on.. But everything behind them is very simply and 2D like.

The coronation scene was stripped of it's majesty and they had Anna dance like a drunken idiot at the pub. Anna starts singing a song, that honestly just feels like she's talking. The melody and rhythm are off. The chorus is non-existent. And that is another problem that this musical has.. The characters don't sing the new songs... They song-speak. Which makes it difficult to follow along.

The sequence of events in the musical also doesn't make sense. They butchered the Anna-Elsa confrontation after the coronation. Anna randomly runs into Kristoff... (We'll talk about him later) and then they meet Olaf, who was created by Elsa but we never got to see her create him, and then they go to Oaken's Sauna.. After which they immediately get to Elsa's castle and then the events follow the ones in the film. Elsa starts to sing a song about being a monster and then surrenders to Hans... BTW that song is a total rip off of "No Good Deed".. Elsa stands center stage, with fog and air blowing towards her while moving her arms. It was very frustrating to witness the atrociously that was the blizzard.. Which I liked to call "The Scooby Doo moment" because they had the actors walk into one side of the stage and disappear into another and have them come out of another side.. Much like Scooby Doo door chases. And the scene were Anna freezes is very climactic.. For some reason they had all of the ensemble freeze with her. And as soon as she started melting, we could see Elsa obviously pulling the white wig off Anna. After which, their parents came back as ghosts and everyone quickly sang a bit of "Love is an open Door" and then the show ends.

I mentioned the projections earlier.. And honestly I think they were banking on it being a revolutionary thing but they were just average.. I've seen better projects done in other places.. Songs wise.. None of the new songs are good.. I think the "No Good Deed" rip off..

Let it Go was a disaster.. She just stands there for the first verse and sings... No movement.. The whole Glove and Cape pull away was normal.. Disneyland did that before.. And her castle is just projections. Nothing impressive.. The dress rip is poorly timed with the light. And the actress Playing Elsa did a very poor job of singing Let it Go. Her voice isn't bad... But she was clearly struggling singing that song.

Characters wise.... They pretty much butchered almost every character..

1. Elsa: Nothing new added to her character except for an existential crises during the second act. Where she wonders if everyone will be better off if she died or killed herself.. Really distasteful. She keeps calling herself a monster.. So much so that at the end during blizzard, each character calls out something they want. Anna calls out to Kristoff. Kristoff calls out to Anna. Hans calls out to Elsa.. Elsa says that she's a monster.. Instead of going out there to look for Anna. For the second act, she runs around barefoot in a nightgown.. Literarily no details on her outfit... Just a blue nightgown.. barefoot..

2. Anna: She's pretty much exactly what she's like in the movie, except she's hyper-sexualized here.. First off, she sings For the First in Forever in her underwear.. She gets her dress ripped off by a guy multiple times in the show.. by men... And then she shows up wearing a towel only wrapped around herself... Ridiculous.

3. Kristoff: Total disaster. Miscast. Underwritten. And ruined. The beauty of this character is that he's supposed to juxtapose Hans. However, they turned him into a more horny version of Flynn Ryder. He is the one to pull off Anna's dress.. and he attempts to sneak a peak while she changes.. She actually had to tell him off. And he is just arrogant and too full of himself... He does sing a couple of songs but they are not memorable and more sing-speaking...

Olaf is ok. Distracting to see him as a speaking human controlling a puppet... Sven looks cool.. But doesn't have any role in the musical. He doesn't appear for like half of the second act and you don't notice it.

And yes. There are people dancing in leotards with branches and leaves covering their private parts..

This whole production was a disaster... And I pray to god they change it a lot by the time it goes to broadway.
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Re: Frozen the Broadway Musical

Post by disneyprincess11 »

Yup, heard it was a disaster too. Also saw Let It Go when it was a leaked video. Not so good. And they still have the naked kick line? What the heck is Disney THINKING with that with little kids in the audience?! And according to a review, during Love Is An Open Door, doesn't Hans literally put his face in Anna's BOOBS?! Man, those scenes will be so lovely to watch with my mom and my two sisters (who hate theater btw, but like Frozen), whom I paid a good $740 for next June. Hoping to God this changes.

BTW: What's Anna's new song? True Love, right?
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Re: Frozen the Broadway Musical

Post by Disney's Divinity »

I wouldn't be surprised if the show was a trainwreck. Disney somehow screwed up Tarzan and even The Little Mermaid for heaven's sake. Nothing would surprise me about their incompetence, so...
taei wrote:
1. Elsa: Nothing new added to her character except for an existential crises during the second act. Where she wonders if everyone will be better off if she died or killed herself.. Really distasteful.
Why is that distasteful? That seems like something that would naturally fit the character/story, imo.
Sotiris wrote: What new poster? :?
I saw the poster, too. It was a take on some old promo image of Elsa from behind (with her dress stretched out) reaching her left hand upwards towards a snowflake/magic effect. I thought the poster was very pretty and hopefully will be the final one.
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Re: Frozen the Broadway Musical

Post by JeanGreyForever »

Secretly I'm a little gleeful that the show is so disastrous since many have speculated that it's because of this show that Hunchback wasn't put on Broadway.

I didn't expect them to do much with the Hidden Folk, nor their connection to the queen. Sounds like they just wanted a backstory for Elsa and this was the best one they could think of.

I find the sexual stuff really out of place but then again the original film had some very coarse and vulgar humor as well which I didn't find tasteful at all, so I shouldn't be surprised they expanded on that. Sorry to hear about Kristoff. As someone who despises Flynn, I'm not too pleased to hear that Kristoff has been retooled to resemble him (especially since I much preferred the original Flynn, Bastion, who Kristoff ended up taking after). Weird how sexualized Anna is
Disney's Divinity wrote:I wouldn't be surprised if the show was a trainwreck. Disney somehow screwed up Tarzan and even The Little Mermaid for heaven's sake. Nothing would surprise me about their incompetence, so...
Tarzan at least was fixed for the German production and it was quite a hit there.
taei wrote:
1. Elsa: Nothing new added to her character except for an existential crises during the second act. Where she wonders if everyone will be better off if she died or killed herself.. Really distasteful.
I'm with Disney's Divinity on this. Why is it distasteful? Do you mean the suicidal part?

Also any more thoughts about Hans? Do they try to explain his motives a little more or flesh out his backstory a little?
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Re: Frozen the Broadway Musical

Post by DisneyJedi »

There’s still time to fix what works and what doesn’t work between now and when it starts previews on Broadway, right? :huh:
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Re: Frozen the Broadway Musical

Post by taei »

I just want to add that I am seriously shocked and disappointed that the Lopezes wrote the songs in this musical.. Because the songs are just very poorly written... I mean, you can tell which song was meant to be in a movie and which song they half assed because the studio told them that it wasn't good enough for a movie. I just really hated how the Frozen shorts had much better songs. "Making Today a Perfect Day" from Frozen Fever is better than any of the songs written for the musical. And while they didn't write the songs for the new short before CoCo I really loved the 2 songs that I have heard so far from the movie.. SO it's shocking that the musical soundtrack/score had that many problems.

disneyprincess11 wrote:And according to a review, during Love Is An Open Door, doesn't Hans literally put his face in Anna's BOOBS?!
BTW: What's Anna's new song? True Love, right?
Yep! Totally forgot about that! During the bridge of Love is an Open Door, they start doing a bunch of dances, some of which are modern... I think they did the nay-nay dance at a certain point... And he does put his face there... Like I said, hyper-sexualized.

Anna's new song faces the same problem.... At that point, the musical was just soo bad, nothing could save it. And she sang-spoke the song which made it difficult to follow through with what she was saying... Again, the only song that left an impression is "Monster"... Which to me means that none of the other songs are any good.
Disney's Divinity wrote:Why is that distasteful? That seems like something that would naturally fit the character/story, imo.
I think it's distasteful in two points. The first obvious one being that it is a Disney show for kids. Yes, try as you may to convince me and others that it's on broadway and it can be mature and stuff... But almost 60% your audience looks like a cult of Elsas in training (I swear, I've never in my life seen that many little girls in Elsa and Anna costumes.. Not even Disneyworld/land.)
For crying out loud, I saw orch center, where the tickets were not cheap and the row in front of me had 6 children. SIX. And my row had like 4 or 5. Make no mistake... Children WILL go see this. So to add this subplot of Elsa wanting to off herself is just too horrid for children to handle.. Especially from a character that they aspire and look up to. Which brings me to the other point... It completely flies in the face of "Let it Go" and what the character stands for. To twist a character that has inspired many children and adults and add the option/thought of suicide is what I consider distasteful. I just had a problem with the "If I die, will everyone be better off?" part of her character.
JeanGreyForever wrote:
Also any more thoughts about Hans? Do they try to explain his motives a little more or flesh out his backstory a little?
Nope. Honestly, he is just the same exact character. they gave him 2 songs, but they are badly placed in the story and again, the lyrics are just not good at all. His character has no more depth... Which I found very frustrating and this musical will suffer because of it. The world already knows that Hans is a bad guy, so it's kind of pointless to try to paint him as a very good guy throughout the musical because we all already know that he will turn out to be a bad guy... A problem that future Disney problems will face if they continue on this trend of surprise villains..
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Re: Frozen the Broadway Musical

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I'm actually glad this might be bad. Serves Disney right for trying to make just their biggest property into a show because it's their biggest property.

I don't like Anna being sexualized. I don't like Kristoff being sexualized. I am ok with sexual things in movies kids will see, but not such blatant sexuality as putting your face in a woman's chest.

Now that I heard what taei said about the suicide thing, I don't approve of it either.
Disney's Divinity wrote:I thought the poster was very pretty and hopefully will be the final one.
Yay! Me too.
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Re: Frozen the Broadway Musical

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Which brings me to the other point... It completely flies in the face of "Let it Go" and what the character stands for. To twist a character that has inspired many children and adults and add the option/thought of suicide is what I consider distasteful. I just had a problem with the "If I die, will everyone be better off?" part of her character.
"Let It Go" isn't the beginning and end of Elsa's character. There's also "FtFTiF (reprise)," where she realizes that even after she's run away she's still a threat to Anna/Arendelle. ("Oh, I'm such a fool, I can't be free/No escape from the storm inside of me") And feeling overburdened, alone, and dangerous because of something beyond her control that nobody can help her with is at the core of her entire character.

As for the other part, we'll have to agree to disagree. I don't believe it's a topic that is inappropriate for children. We hear about middle-school and high-school aged children committing suicide in the news all the time. The unneeded sexualization of Hans/Kristoff's reactions to Anna sounds more inappropriate for me. Maybe they intended that to emphasize the ending with Anna choosing her sister over men who objectify her? Who knows.
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Re: Frozen the Broadway Musical

Post by unprincess »

that's disheartening (though kinda funny) to read about taei. Its a shame that the staging and choreography is so bad but you'd think the new songs would at least have been good since its the same team who did the film.



regarding Hans, Im hoping the reason he got no new development/backstory is because they plan to give him some in the film sequel and didnt want to use anything for the show, but its still disappointing that they keep the "shock tweest!!!" nonsense. What's the point by now? They could have at least added a song that hinted at some foreshadowing.
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Re: Frozen the Broadway Musical

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Re: Frozen the Broadway Musical

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JeanGreyForever wrote:
Disney's Divinity wrote:I wouldn't be surprised if the show was a trainwreck. Disney somehow screwed up Tarzan and even The Little Mermaid for heaven's sake. Nothing would surprise me about their incompetence, so...
Tarzan at least was fixed for the German production and it was quite a hit there.
It was actually the Dutch production, not the German one. They did the same thing with the Dutch production of The Little Mermaid. Both were failures on Broadway but were retooled internationally and were hits there (and subsequent other countries).

So if there is a chance the Broadway version is not a hit (which I doubt) they could always retool it in The Netherlands or another European country :P.
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