Let It Flow: Slow Burn Theatre Company Brings Frozen's Magic to Life
- Joanie Cox Henry
- 9 hours ago
- 3 min read
By Joanie Cox-Henry
We all know what it feels like to hide. To smile when we're breaking, to hold ourselves rigid when we long to be free, to build walls between ourselves and the people we love most. Slow Burn Theatre Company's radiant production of Disney's Frozen: The Broadway Musical, now melting hearts at the Broward Center  for the Performing Arts through Jan. 4, takes a beloved animated film and transforms it into something urgent and necessary—a mirror that shows us not only who we are, but who we might become.
Slow Burn Theatre Company has crafted a production that honors both the spectacle and the soul of this modern fairy tale.
Director Patrick Fitzwater understands that Frozen works not because of its ice magic or comic snowman, but because it centers a story on something Disney had largely ignored for decades: the complicated, essential love between sisters. While many Broadway adaptations of animated films can feel like theme park attractions, this production finds the beating heart beneath the snow.
Children delight in Olaf's pratfalls (The Rock Shop's puppet design gives him a wonderfully gangly physicality) and gasp at the icy transformations. But Kristen Anderson-Lopez and Robert Lopez's score—which expands beautifully beyond the film's soundtrack—creates space for adult themes of isolation, duty, and the prison of perfectionism. "Dangerous to Dream" and "Monster" deepen Elsa's journey in ways the film could only hint at, giving her interior life a complexity that makes her eventual liberation all the more powerful.
Fitzwater's direction keeps the spectacle in service of story. Nikolas Serrano's scenic design evokes Arendelle's Nordic beauty without overwhelming the stage, while Eric Norbury's lighting design works magic in suggesting Elsa's ice powers—a smart choice that sparks the imagination. Rick Peña's costumes strike that difficult balance between Disney's animated elegance and the practical needs of performers executing Cat Pagano's dynamic choreography.
Pagano's choreography deserves special recognition. The ensemble numbers pulse with life, particularly "Hygge," which transforms the comic number into something genuinely joyful. Her work on "Let It Go"—that unavoidable anthemcic, cultural juggernaut—wisely focuses on the liberation in Elsa's body language, the way freedom looks when it moves through limbs that have been held frozen for years.
The performances rise beautifully to meet the material's demands. Elsa and Anna require actors who can navigate sisterly affection and deep hurt, often in the same breath, while belting stratospheric vocal lines. Lea Marinelli as Else and Kristi Rose Mills as Anna prove to be a dynamic duo.
The production's casting proves inspired—these aren't cartoon princesses but women grappling with impossible choices. The younger portrayals of these iconic characters also delight with Blaire DiMisa as young Elsa and Penelope Martone as young Anna.
For select show dates, Young Elsa is thoughtfully played by Stella Anna Macey and Everly Beeson brings joy as Young Anna
Gio Tio's music direction keeps the orchestrations lush, and Dan Donato's sound design ensures the emotional clarity of both soaring anthems and intimate moments. This attention to sonic detail pays dividends in "For the First Time in Forever (Reprise)," where Anna and Elsa's argument lands with precision.
Slow Burn's interpretation of Disney's Frozen: The Broadway Musical respects both the material and the audience. When Elsa sings "Show Yourself" in the second act (one of the stage-exclusive additions), the production trusts us to sit with her self-discovery, and the moment soars.
Fitzwater and his team have created something that works on multiple levels: as family entertainment, yes, but also as a meditation on the masks we wear and the costs of hiding ourselves. In an age of increasing isolation and performative perfection, Frozen's message about the dangerous seduction of self-protection feels almost prophetic.
The audience I saw it with—a mix of families, couples, and groups of friends—responded with the kind of engagement that can't be faked. Children sat rapt. Adults dabbed at eyes. And when that inevitable moment arrived and Elsa's voice soared on
"Let It Go," something magical happened: we all let ourselves be transported, let ourselves believe in transformation, let ourselves hope that the distance between who we are and who we show the world might someday close.
Disney's Frozen: The Broadway Musical offers permission to feel something true, to see ourselves in someone else's story, to believe—for the first time in forever—that we might not have to face the cold alone.
Disney's Frozen: The Broadway Musical runs through Jan. 4, 2026, at the Broward Center for the Performing Arts. Recommended for audiences of all ages. Running time: approximately 2 hours and 30 minutes with intermission. Get your tickets here.
Here are some snaps from the show! My son, Patrick Henry, had a blast!
