Off-Broadway production of "Frozen" comes to Macon 

“Frozen, Jr.” is taking the stage in Middle Georgia. The junior version of the Broadway musical was made available for production recently. Now that it has been released, Theatre Macon director Richard Frazier has snagged the rights to this popular show. 

The show has only become available in the last year, according to the Music Theatre International’s website. Since its release, there has been an explosion of interest; there will be 20 productions of the show all over the United States within the next three months. 

“We are actually the third group to produce Disney’s ‘Frozen, Jr.,’ but we are the first to produce it with full costumes, sets and special effects,” Frazier said. 

Being one of the first theatre groups to produce “Frozen, Jr.,” Theatre Macon has gained some celebrity attention. Brooklyn Nelson, the actor who plays young Elsa in the original Broadway production of “Frozen,” sent a short, 13-second video to Theatre Macon to wish them good luck during the run of their show. 

“I work closely with many theatre professionals from around the country, and I reached out to a friend who worked with the young Anna and young Elsa in the original Broadway production,” Frazier said. “I asked if she thought if either of the young ladies would be interested in sending a ‘break a leg’ video to our cast, and we are so grateful they did. The cast was so excited, and it really gave them an extra jolt of energy before their second performance on Saturday.” 

“Frozen, Jr.” is being produced by Theatre Macon’s Youth Actor Company (YAC). The show stars YAC alumni Ella Trotter as Elsa and Anna Buckroth as Anna. 

The production process started in the summer; auditions were held in July and the cast has been in rehearsal since the middle of August. Frazier said they took about two weeks to learn the music, then two weeks to perfect the choreography and blocking. After that, they started to include technical elements like lighting, sound and costumes.  

Costume designer Shelley Kuhen has been working on the show since August alongside her design team members Katie Trotter, Logan Best and Kayla Astin, who is also Kuhen’s granddaughter. The team has hand-crafted almost all of the costume pieces for this show, including a hand-embroidered and hand-painted dress for Anna and a magnetized breakaway dress for Elsa. 

“The magnetized dress was sewn to look like two pieces, but was actually one piece that has magnet buttons down the front,” Kuhen said. “When it came time for Elsa to reveal the ice dress, she rips off the magnetized dress and someone from underneath the stairs whisks it away to show the ice dress underneath.”  

The show opened Sept. 27 and had a great turnout; several of the shows sold out throughout the run. Frazier said he is very excited to share this work with everyone in the Macon community. 

“It has been wonderful to be in the theatre with parents bringing their children to see what could possibly be their first live performance anywhere, and they are choosing to come to Theatre Macon,” he said. 

While Frazier and the design team have taken inspiration from the Broadway and movie versions of the show, there have also been design elements incorporated that make this show unique to Theatre Macon. 

“Something that really makes this show exciting is that we utilize four snow cannons as well as many other special effects. We are also using video projections for the production, which really allows us to create some theatre and movie magic,” Frazier said. “We’ve had a blast bringing this production to life, but also giving it our own Theatre Macon touch.” 

Tickets for future productions at Theatre Macon can be purchased through their website.