Disney's When You Wish Musical (NOT the life of Walt Disney)

[azcavalier]

We are visiting my in-laws in St. George, Utah. In a little town just northwest of St. George is a charter performing arts high school with an arts center attached to it called Tuacahn. Tuacahn is an outdoor amphitheater/high tech arts center. This month they are running three shows: Disney's Beauty and the Beast, Sister Act, and Disney's When You Wish. We saw When You Wish last night.

I had never heard of it. I looked it up to see what it was, and this is a brand new, never shown anywhere else Disney production. It was *fantastic*.

Imagine Philharmagic, but for two hours. It was basically a musical revue of a bunch of Disney movies. The plot was a little girl (12 yrs old) had a Disney storybook that her Mom read to her before bed. Once she goes to sleep, she starts dreaming that she is in those particular movies. At the end, of course, it turns out to be more magical than that. The entire show was songs...no dialogue at all. It just went from one scene to the next. It included at least one, but often more, songs from the following (in no particular order):

Newsies
The Tigger Movie
Aladdin
Beauty and the Beast
Mulan
Pocahontas
Hercules
Mary Poppins
Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs
Cinderella
Tangled
Enchanted
The Little Mermaid
The Jungle Book
Tarzan
Pinocchio

The effects were amazing. Tuacahn is an open air theater, and the backdrop is the red sandstone cliffs of southern Utah. And the back of the stage is open to the outdoors as well...no back wall. They have a river that flows right up to the back of the stage, and before the Tarzan scenes they flooded the river and it came gushing ONTO THE STAGE and dumping into a hidden channel between the stage and the audience. It was amazing. Then Tarzan's parents came onto the stage, in their boat, and they did the song associated with the beginning of Tarzan, complete with the shipwreck. They also used the wet stage and water curtain that the projected on (ala Fantasmic) for the Little Mermaid scenes. To simulate swimming, the actors used some version of a Segway-styled technology that hid under their "fins".

This was an amazing show, with a cast of professionals that had broadway and off-broadway experience.

I would LOVE for them to do a version of this at Hollywood Studios, but they'd have to cut it down a little.

If anyone is traveling through southern Utah in the next few months, do yourself a favor, look up Tuacahn's website, and see if you can snag a ticket for it. You won't regret it!

[ibelieveindisneymagic]

That sounds just awesome!! Glad you enjoyed it, and I wish it wasn't so far away.