THS has won a chance to take a trip to Arrendale.

Earlier this year, Triton Theater teacher Natalie Safley entered the school into Disney’s “Love is an Open Door” grant contest for a chance to win the free rights to stage Frozen: The Musical by Michael Grandage. Competing against thousands of schools nationwide who applied, THS was chosen as the only school in Massachusetts to be able to stage the show.

The grant guarantees three free performances, as well as a free digital script, score, and orchestrations. It also allows for a free video license. In a typical performance, these are costly items a school needs to purchase.

Every school that applied was told to come up with their own unique version of the show with different themes or ideas connected to “love being an open door,” a reference to a memorable line and theme of the play. Safley’s idea was to relate the theme it to the book Oddbird by Derek Desierto.

The book revolves around a bird who has no color and is judged and treated poorly by the colorful birds, but the oddbird was determined and ended up finding some feathers in the woods to pretend that he was colorful. All the birds thought the oddbird’s colors were fantastical but then he jumped into the water and all of his color washed  right off…

Safley wants to take the idea of this book and use it in her color scheme for the show. Taking place in a more modern Scandinavian setting, Elsa will be colorful growing up but once she’s banished she will lose more and more color the farther she gets.

“I see Elsa’s character being in black and white so the further and further she’s removed from Arendelle, she’s going to become more black and white in costumes, and hair… You’re not going to see the traditional blue dress.” Safley said. 

Safley is absolutely stoked to get the rights for this show and she shares that feeling with Triton Junior Cam Neary. Neary plans on being part of the cast next year and hopes to play the role of Hans, the show’s central male figure, 

“I have had a great acting career as a bad guy, so I really hope that I can be Hans, I really love pissing people off,” said Neary. “… I’ve always wanted to sing Love Is an Open Door for a crowd, it’s probably my favorite song from the show.”

Neary is most known for his role as Mr. Wormwood in last year’s musical production Matilda. He has also been named as Mal Beineke, father of the love interest Lucas Beineke (Aidan Coates) in the upcoming THS show, The Addams Family. 

Brenna Coates, a senior here at Triton believes this opportunity is great for the program and the younger kids. “Seeing as we will have a bigger budget and we will be able to do a whole lot more with theater through the school because that budget is being covered… I’m excited for my underclassmen to be able to experience that and do a play that a lot of people know and one that I think they’ll enjoy a lot.”

Frozen The Musical will be performed in the fall of 2023 with show dates to be announced prior.