Based on the Academy Award winning Disney animated feature film, Frozen, the Adelaide Theatre Academy’s limited season of Frozen Jr at the Goodwood Institute, is a first-class vehicle to highlight the outstanding flourishing talents of the young cast in this highly entertaining production that brings Anna, Elsa and the crew alive on stage.
The plot develops in the Kingdom of Arendelle as Young Anna and Young Elsa play as summer is celebrated by the Townspeople. Young Anna pesters Young Elsa to use her magical powers to create snow and ice. Queen Iduna and King Agnarr prompt them that Young Elsa’s powers must be kept a secret. That night they build a toy snowman called Olaf, and Young Elsa inadvertently uses her powers resulting in Young Anna becoming unconscious. The King and Queen enlist the help of the Hidden Folk and their leaders Pabbie and Bulda revive Young Anna and remove the memory of Young Elsa’s powers from Young Anna’s head. Fearful of her potentially harmful magic, Young Elsa vows to hide her powers and removes herself from everyone including her sister.
The King and Queen travel away from the kingdom but are lost at sea and the sisters are isolated from the outside world and each other. Later Elsa is to be crowned Queen and for the Coronation the castle gates are opened after being shut for many years. Anna becomes excited with the prospect of having people back in the castle. Anna falls in love with Prince Hans and Elsa again loses control of her powers and flees, Anna tries to find her sister leaving Prince Hans in charge of Arendelle. In her search she encounters Kristoff and his reindeer Sven, then Olaf the talking snowman who all join her in her quest to find Elsa.
The show includes the favourite songs from the original film, “Let It Go” and “Do You Want to Build a Snowman?” as well as new songs for the stage.
With the limited confines of the Goodwood Institute and the large size of the cast, the set design is minimal, relying on a series of ladders that are moved throughout the show. While practical considerations are obviously in play in relation to the minimal set design, the minimalism may lead to confusion with the story amongst younger audience members of which there was a large number in the session reviewed. There were also minor sound issues but not enough to mar the show. Costumes are very good, however the stylised Olaf costume may again lead to confusion for younger audience members.
Two casts alternate between sessions, a “Winter Cast” and a ” Summer Cast”. The session reviewed was performed by the “Winter Cast”. The whole cast has impressive developing talent. They all performed to a remarkably excellent level considering their age and would all seem to have bright futures. Given the excellent performance of all the cast it seems unfair to single out individual members, but the leads Claire Wilkes as Anna and Lucy Parkes as Elsa, deserve special mention for outstanding achievements. Lucy’s singing voice is already at an accomplished level. Special scene stealing mention also to Olive Kennedy as Olaf.
The Adelaide Theatre Academy should be proud of their production of Frozen Jr as it highlights the brilliant developing talents of the cast in this charming take on Disney’s Frozen characters.
Frozen Jr runs to 19 July 2025; remaining session dates and times are as follows:
– Friday July 18th – 10:15am & 6:30pm
– Saturday July 19th – 11:00am & 6:30pm
To book tickets to Frozen Jr, please visit https://theatrebugs.com.au/theatre-bugs-shows-and-events/.
