Thursday night, Beaverton’s Westview High School will become only the second school in the country – and the first in Oregon – to produce the full-length Broadway version of the musical “Frozen.”
The Westview theater department won the exclusive performance rights in a national essay contest, based on an entry submitted by sophomore Abigail Figueroa over the summer. Students were asked to answer the question, “What makes your school the best choice in your state to exemplify this idea and represent the theme Love Is an Open Door?”
“We are a public high school, open to and accepting of all who make up our student body of 2,525 students, 61% of which are BIPOC, many of whom identify as LGBTQIA+, with 52 home languages and diverse socioeconomic backgrounds,” Figueroa wrote. “Westview’s vision for Frozen is one of inclusion, diversity and representation. We will showcase the talents of underrepresented groups, giving them opportunities to shine onstage as leads or offstage with valuable crew roles, elevating BIPOC students and demonstrating the importance of representation.”
Theater student Abigail Figueroa, who submitted the winning entry for the “Frozen” contest, during a rehearsal.Tim Hurtt, Beaverton School District
Fifty-two schools representing all 50 states, Puerto Rico and a school in Germany serving children of U.S. military personnel, all received free rights to three performances “Frozen” over the next school year, with the option to license more dates. Frisco High School in Frisco, Texas, had the first run of performances in the U.S. last month.
“Disney’s Frozen: The Broadway Musical” premiered on Broadway in 2018. The U.S. tour of the production began in November 2019 but was suspended, as was the Broadway show, in March 2020 during the coronavirus pandemic. In fact, the touring company was in town for the Portland premiere of the show at the Keller Auditorium when remaining performances were canceled.
A few hours before Westview’s opening night, Figueroa, who performs in the chorus, was still working on the show’s final touches.
“We finally got our magic to make Elsa’s cape and gloves fly for ‘Let it Go,’ so that’s gonna be pretty cool,” she said. “It’s finally coming together.”
As of this writing, only a few seats remained for the three-weekend run at Westview High School. That’s a huge boon to the theater department, which receives proceeds from ticket sales.
“Usually we have half of our seats left,” Figueroa said. “We have a pretty big auditorium, it’s 580 seats, and so it’s a big deal that we got so many of our shows sold out.”
Tickets are $10 and can be purchased online. Performances are March 2-4 and March 9-11 at 7 p.m., and March 4 and 11 at 2 p.m. at Westview High School auditorium, 4200 N.W. 185th Ave.
The theater department will also operate a standby line for unclaimed and added seats an hour before showtime.
“We have a wait list and we’re adding more chairs for different shows,” Figueroa said. “So there is still opportunity to come see it, and I encourage that. It’s an amazing show. We’ve all put in so much work, and you’ll really see that.”
— Samantha Swindler, sswindler@oregonian.com, @editorswindler
