Aladdin Broadway Understudy Gets Wild “Magic Carpet Ride” To Make Emergency Performance

One cast member for Aladdin‘s Broadway production got to take a real-life magic carpet ride in order to make it onstage in time for the show to start. On Monday, Jasmine understudy Mikayla Renfrow took to TikTok to share her intense, last-minute arrival on Broadway to take on the role of the Disney princess after getting the call while coming home from Europe that she might need to go on stage in a short amount of time.

On TikTok (via People), Renfrow shared that she had four more hours of her flight back to the United States and that she would land with no time to make it to the theater. However, coordinated effort between Delta Airlines and Uber Blade ended up getting her to the show just in time. Renfrow explained that she asked a flight attendant if she could be the first person off the plane, but the pilot also got involved, requesting a gate closer to customs. Renfrow was also moved up to first class so she could eat, rest, and hydrate. Ultimately, a Delta agent expedited her through customs and despite being one minute late, Blade still waited for her and got her to the show just in time.

“I ended up being one minute late, but Blade waited for me knowing this was my last try at making it for the show. They saved me,” Renfrow said. Her Delta flight attendant even came to the show to see her perform.

“Hearing her cheer me on from the moment I stepped out just carried me through the whole thing,” she told People. “So that show was for her. She helped me through that whole journey, even to the theater at the end of the night.”

About Aladdin on Broadway

Aladdin has been on Broadway since March 20, 2014, and is, as of August 2022 the 10th highest grossing Broadway production of all time. The musical is based on Disney’s 1992 animated film of the same name and features a book by Chad Beguelin, music by Alan Menken, and lyrics by Howard Ashman, Tim Rice, and Beguelin and features three songs that were written for the film, but not used.

Will There Be a Live-Action Aladdin Sequel?

Released in 2019, Disney’s live-action remake of the 1992 animated film starred Mena Massoud as the eponymous street rat-turned-prince, Will Smith as the wish-fulfilling Genie, and Naomi Scott as the outspoken Princess Jasmine. After director Guy Ritchie’s Aladdin re-imagining grossed more than $1 billion at the worldwide office, Disney put a sequel into development in early 2020, though there haven’t been any real updates since.