A team of students from 51 Olathe schools won the right to produce this Disney musical

It might be August, but things are about to get magically chilly at Olathe South High School. The school is hosting performances from Aug. 16 to 20 of the Disney Broadway musical “Frozen,” featuring a cast that spans every school in the district.

Last year, the Olathe School District won the right to be the first school in Kansas to perform the full Broadway version of the show through a contest sponsored by Disney Theatrical Group, The Educational Theatre Association, International Thespian Festival and Music Theatre International.

To win, schools had to present an idea of how they would reach out to the community to make a diverse and inclusive production. For Olathe, that meant making sure that the cast contained at least one kid from each of the district’s 51 schools.

“We wanted to include students in schools who wouldn’t normally have an experience producing a large show like this,” said Eddie Shafer, director of the production.

“We specifically reached out to students from low (socioeconomic status) schools or Title I schools, students of all different levels and abilities, to create a diverse cast. We really wanted something that was reflective of our Olathe community.”

Although the cast was announced in February, the group only got together to start rehearsing in late July. Because there was so much time between the announcement and the short rehearsal period, cast members had to have all their lines memorized before the first rehearsal.

A couple of the younger actors have bigger roles, like the younger versions of Anna and Elsa, but most of them are in the various ensembles that dance and sing around the main characters. Getting that wide an age range melding together makes this production special, Shafer said.

“The high school kids are embracing the elementary kids. The elementary kids are working right alongside the high school kids. Seeing all these levels come together to create one story has been really inspiring and fun to put together,” said Shafer, who is also Olathe East’s theater director.

Younger kids also give the older students and adults a different perspective on the show.

“When we first brought (the puppet) Olaf out, some of the elementary kids, because their imagination is still so intact, truly believed it was Olaf. You could see it in their eyes. It’s that kind of magic we hope to create next week for our audience,” Shafer said.

That younger group also presents new organizational challenges for assistant stage manager Isaac Lowe, a student at Olathe West.

“With elementary schoolchildren, I have to keep track of them, I have to learn their names and make sure their parents are happy. There are so many new factors I haven’t worked with before,” said Isaac, 17.

Leah Pal, an Olathe Northwest student who plays Bulda the troll, was previously in a middle school version of “Frozen.”

“This is the full Broadway version,” said Leah, 17. “That show was just the junior version, so it was missing a lot of the songs and a lot of the plot lines.”

For Olathe West student Genevieve Anderson, getting the role of Elsa is a chance to show a different side of herself as an actor. She said she’s usually cast in comedic roles.

“When you’re playing a comedic character, you can cover up the mistakes you may make on stage with a joke, and people laugh,” said Genevieve, 17. “This is like — I’m sad a lot. You’re looking into my most vulnerable state the entire show, and it’s been really challenging, but I like the challenge of making people feel something.”

She’s also looking forward to people seeing the technology of the production, especially the lighting design.

“I think the lights for the show are some of the best I’ve seen in a long time. We have big LED screens, and it makes you feel like you’re living in a cartoon.”

Although the Olathe schools won the opportunity to put on the show, figuring out how to do so, both financially and technically, was up to them.

“They still expect magic to come out of Elsa’s hand. They still expect it to snow on stage. They expect there to be a snowstorm at the end,” Shafer said.

“Those are the kind of things Broadway can do rather easily with the budgets and technology and sophistication that comes with Broadway stages. Here we gotta come up with creative ways to make all that magic happen.”

The production has gotten some funding from the Olathe Public Schools Foundation and is also using the profits from ticket sales to pay production costs. Tickets are $15 per person. For more information, visit frozenpremiereks.com.