Disney’s Frozen Shuts Down Permanently on Broadway Because of COVID-19

Disney has taken Elsa’s advice and are letting go of their Frozen musical adaptation on Broadway. The producers for the stage version of the hit animated film made the announcement today, revealing that the show will not return when Broadway decides to reopen, but even that time table is unclear. In a letter to the staff of Disney Theatrical Productions, president Thomas Schumacher wrote: “This difficult decision was made for several reasons but primarily because we believe that three Disney productions will be one too many titles to run successfully in Broadway’s new landscape.” The other Disney theatrical productions that will seemingly remain on Broadway are The Lion King and Aladdin.

Disney’s Frozen the Musical on Broadway opened on March 22, 2018 at the St. James Theatre with its final performance before the coronavirus shut down being on March 11, 2019, meaning the show was unable to play on Broadway for a full year. Despite the tremendous success of the feature film in 2015, the Broadway adaptation of Frozen was unable to gain the same notoriety. The musical was nominated for three Tony awards, Best Musical, Best Book, and Best Original Score, but failed to win any of the awards.

For the time being the touring production of Frozen the Musical is also on hiatus due to the coroanvirus pandemic. Engagements for the musical have been postponed in Minneapolis and Tulsa, with productions cancelled in Dallas and Cleveland. The touring show is still scheduled to open later this year in Boston, Charlotte, and Chicago, but time will tell if the show will continue its road show or be further postponed.

Fans of the animated Frozen still have a lot to look forward to though as The Walt Disney Company announced Into the Unknown: Making Frozen 2 earlier this week. Set to premiere exclusively on Disney+, the docu-series is a six-episode journey behind the scenes of the biggest animated film in history. The series will make its debut exclusively on the streaming service on June 26th. Unlike other shows on the service, Into the Unknown will release all of its episodes at once.

Both Frozen films are streaming on Disney+ now as well, with Disney Animation debuting a new “made at home” animated short series titled At Home With Olaf featuring Josh Gad as the fan-favorite snowman character from Frozen, performing his part from home and singing all new songs from Academy Award winners Kristen Anderson-Lopez and Robert Lopez.