The Princess Blog

In 2023, two "Cinderella" inspired musicals  made their way to Broadway and promptly closed within less than a year. On the other side of the world, a different fairy tale-inspired musical was enchanting audiences across Europe. Snow White & Me  is a portal fantasy like Between the Lines  with self-aware fairy tale characters who want to change their pre-written destinies, similar to Ever After High and Once Upon a Time . The story shares elements with the Britney Spears jukebox musical, Once Upon a One More Time , but its original soundtrack is vastly superior, as are the costumes and plot, which thankfully doesn't have a forced feminist agenda . According to the show's official website, it was commissioned in 2018 for European productions and seeks to find its way to the American stage in the future. As of last month, the English soundtrack for Snow White & Me became widely available online and can be listened to for free on YouTube . Like  with all good mu...

Pocahontas's River of Memories  is the fifth consecutive Princess Tea  I attended for the Cedar Park High School Choir . This school really knows how to put on a show! Every year, the auditorium is transformed into a magical fairytale castle, where talented students come out to perform an original musical packed with familiar songs from various animated movies. The girls' choir, The Seasons, and the boys' choir, Pitch Black, dress up as iconic characters and create a unique script each year for those characters to perform along with interactive games for the children in the audience, who attend dressed as their favorite prince or princess. Every show is different and features a unique princess host. This year's Princess Tea was hosted by Pocahontas, but the Mad Hatter quietly stole the show minutes into its opening. When Pocahontas presented the princes and princesses with a magic river containing memories dating back to their ancestors, he began panicking that Alice mi...

As promised in my review of the Disney Magic  cruise ship, I am taking the time to write a full review of Twice Charmed , the long-running "Cinderella" musical that is exclusive to the Disney Magic and serves as the inspiration for the 2007 direct-to-DVD sequel, Cinderella III: A Twist in Time . Though many people are familiar with Cinderella III  since the DVD was more accessible to the public, Twice Charmed predates it by two years and contains many key differences from the film, including original songs and an original character, Franco, the wicked Fairy Godfather to Lady Tremaine. While the plot of Lady Tremaine using magic to turn back time so Prince Charming will choose one of her daughters resembles the animated sequel, the stage show is an entirely different experience that takes full advantage of its live medium. The show begins with the same projection technology that Disney has been using for all their live shows for the past decade or so. An image of a storybook...

There are times when we can all use a little magic in our lives. For me, that was midway through 2025, when I booked a Very Merrytime cruise on the Disney Magic , which set sail earlier this week. This was my second Disney cruise after having the most amazing time on the Wish  a couple of years ago. Unlike the Wish, which was the newest ship at the time (though it isn't anymore), the Magic is the first and oldest ship in Disney's fleet. Still, there were many similarities between the two, which made me feel like an experienced Disney cruiser. Since it was my second time sailing with Disney, I was automatically inducted into their Castaway Club, which provided advance booking perks and a free tote bag and set of room key lanyards. When I first booked this cruise, I didn't know much about what to expect except aside from the magical experience I had on the Wish, and that was enough for me. Imagine my joy upon learning that, like the Wish, this ship features two princess stage...

It's been a year-long wait, but the second half of the  movie adaptation of Wicked  has finally arrived in theaters. I have been a fan of the Broadway musical for twenty years, so I was excited to see it brought ot he big screen. This film covered the second act of the play, and more than doubled its length from the stage version. Though the additional footage was more noticeable in this movie than it was in the first one, I did not think it detracted from the plot in any way. The second act of the musical is quiet, emotional, and mature, which was accurately reflected by this adaptation. In terms of authenticity, it helped that Winnie Holzman , the writer of the book for the Broadway musical, also wrote the screenplay for the film adaptation, and that Gregory Maguire , the author of the thematically divergent novel that inspired it, was not involved. Since both Wicked  movies were shot simultaneously, this movie contains many of the same breathtaking practical imagery ...

When I first heard there would be a new anime about singing princess  Magical Girls , I was stoked. I love all of those things, so how could combining them  go wrong? I couldn't wait to write about Princession Orchestra . I waited with baited breath for the first episode to air. Then I watched it and realized I had very little to say about it. Now, I am 20 episodes in, and I still don't have a lot to say. The series fulfills its promise on a most basic level. However, the majority of its charm comes from aesthetics and very little else. Despite what the title would lead you to believe, Princession Orchestra pays more homage to Alice in Wonderland  than it does to princess stories. In fact, there are so many Wonderland references peppered throughout the show that I personally think Wonderland Orchestra would have been a more appropriate title. The show takes place in a beautiful fantasy world called Alicepia, which is powered by an app that only girls can access. When the...

For the last thirty years or so, Disney on Broadway  has been protective of their live shows, encouraging fans to come to New York City and watch them with their families at high costs. A lot of things changed during the COVID lockdowns . For one, it has become more common for professional recordings of live theater to be made available for people to watch in the comfort of their own homes. In 2020, Disney shared their proshot of Tangled: The Musical , which had previously only been available on their cruise ships. They also tested the waters by releasing a proshot of the record-breaking Hamilton on Disney+. The lockdowns may be over, but their effects have had lasting changes on the media, making it more common than ever to watch live theater from home. The most recent example of this is their West End proshot of Frozen: The Musical , which is available to stream starting today on Disney+. I have my issues with the Frozen movie , but in my opinion, the stage show is the best adap...

I will always have a soft spot in my heart for anything related to "The Little Mermaid."  For as long as I can remember, Disney's Hollywood Studios  had a short stage show dedicated to their animated adaptation called "Voyage of The Little Mermaid."  The show, which I refer to as "watching the movie on fast forward," got shut down during the COVID lockdowns of 2020 . During this time the theater grew a mold infestation , which forced them to do renovations and give the show a much-needed update. Today is the official premiere date of "The Little Mermaid: A Musical Adventure,"  a new stage show located in the same theater as "Voyage of The Little Mermaid." I am so pleased that they took this opportunity to update their "Little Mermaid" show at Walt Disney World instead of replacing it with something entirely different, like they did with Ariel's Grotto restaurant in Disney's California Adventure . "The Little M...

To celebrate the 50th anniversary of The Rose of Versailles anime , MAPPA  launched a brand new movie that was licensed by Netflix  to retell the story using updated music and animation. The Rose of Versailles  sort of works as a film, but it struggles with many of the same issues as the Sailor Moon Cosmos  movies in that it tries to retell a long story for people with short attention spans and ends up skipping over many important details. The movie is presented as a disjointed musical. The first hour contains a stylized music video practically every five minutes to notate the passage of time and the emotional state of the characters. There was only one point where it looked like a character was singing the song, and it came so long after the more artsy videos that it was pretty jarring. The new adaptation of the 1972 anime retells the story about a woman named Oscar who is trained to be a French soldier to defend Marie Antoinette during the French Revolution. It co...