Tomorrow (April 25th) is opening night for Disney’s The Little Mermaid at Pioneer High School here in Ann Arbor. Tickets are available at http://www.showtix4u.com
If you haven’t seen any of their shows, it’ll be the best ten bucks you’ll ever spend. The talent, direction, sets, and costumes are top notch, making their theatre guild one of the best in the country.
If you’re one of my seven loyal readers, you may recall that we were involved in another production of Little Mermaid, which was the shorter version done by a local company. For this one, Pioneer has the terrific honor of being the first high school to put on this full version of the show. In the past, they were the first to do Shrek The Musical, Miss Saigon, and High School Musical.
In this production, my daughter plays Attina, Ariel’s oldest sister, so she gets some really good solos and stage time. And my son’s making an appearance as part of the kid’s ensemble as well!
Break a leg!
***
I’ve always loved, loved, loved the Disney Princess movies bec-…. I know, that sounds pretty creepy but you gotta remember I have two daughters. And when they were younger, like every other girl in America, they loved all the Princesses. We owned all the movies, went to Disney on Ice every time it came to town, and had a closet full of princess dresses. One of them LIVED in her Cinderella dress, even wearing it during a one-night hospital stay. So Disney Princesses were unavoidable in our household.
What I always loved about the movies was the music, especially the early 1990s films that were scored by Alan Menken. To me, these were a golden age for Disney; Menken had his hands on Aladdin, Beauty and The Beast, Pocahontas, Hunchback of Notre Dame, and The Little Mermaid. All of those had terrific songs with memorable, classic, soaring melodies. Menken, who also wrote Little Shop of Horrors, brought a Broadway sensibility to the movies which was key to their success.
To tell you the truth, Mermaid is probably my least favorite of the Menken Disney films. But that’s like having a fleet of Ferraris and not liking the blue one. It’s still a masterpiece. I think it was just that Flounder annoyed the hell out of me.
There are so many terrific songs in the movie like “Fathoms Below,” “Under the Sea,” “Kiss the Girl.” But this one is my favorite:
Part of your World.
And, of course, what kind of food blogger would I be if I didn’t post this one:
Les Poissons
What was your favorite Mermaid song or Princess Movie?
#music
#theater
i’m going to try to make the show, probably a matinee. best of luck to you and your daughter and say hi to my friend kris p. )
Was just talking to her a couple nights ago! Thx and enjoy the show
Hmm, a tie between Poor Unfortunate Souls and Les Poissons . I love a good female villain and Ursula is right up there.