Before the matinee show of “Frozen” last Saturday, the Pullman High School auditorium glittered with Elsa costumes and magic wands as families with children of all ages packed into theater seats to experience the magic of “Frozen.” As the lights dimmed, the excited chitter of young voices and the rustling of coats being removed quieted, and the chorus on stage began. For just over two and a half hours, the costumed crowd was transported from the magical winter wonderland of Pullman to the magical winter wonderland of Arendelle. 

Morgan and Quinn Druffel were among those excited movie fans in the crowd, but identified their fandom as more nostalgic. 

“I used to be a really big fan of it. When I was young, I inspired my little sister and then my cousins to watch it. And they all got ‘Frozen’ dresses,” Morgan Druffel said. “Yeah, I was a fan when I was young, but now I’ve grown out of it, I still like watching it and I feel like it’s going to be cooler as a play.” 

In matching white tulle gowns in a posse eight-strong of Elsa fans, these Frozen fanatics had seen a sneak peek performance in a visit from the Drama Club to their elementary school. 

“They performed at my school during lunch,” Quinn Druffle said. ”When they put on the play, I was like, finally, some entertainment.”

PHS head drama coach Andrew Mielke is familiar with the power he has to take his high school thespians and make them local celebrities, especially to the young fans. 

“I’ve been telling all the adults like, don’t come Saturday afternoon because this place will be 300 little girls dreaming to be Elsa,” Mielke said. “We went and performed in an elementary school and she sang ‘Let it Go,’ and about 200 little faces were just singing every word. They weren’t even eating their chicken nuggets.” 

Painfully absent from this performance was the iconic anthropomorphic snowman, Olaf. He came to life in the theater as a life size puppet snowman, and the numerous jokes at the expense of his snow butt were a hit with the family audience. 

Mielke said that a reactive audience is the best possible audience after months of performing to an empty theater. 

“We started practice in the middle of November, 10-plus hours a week, we have all these jokes, hopefully people laugh,” Mielke said. 

Besides the comedy bits, the show has plenty of heart, leaving the crowd with a warm and fuzzy feeling strong enough to melt Anna’s frozen heart. 

Natalie Clark, PHS senior playing the role of Anna, said she was drawn to the princess’s character because of her surprising depth.

“She’s very lighthearted and fun, and she gets a lot of really fun duets and interactions with other characters while still having a real emotional depth,” Clark said. “It’s fun to explore on stage, it’s kind of a cool contrast to play with.” 

From falling in love with not one, but two men she just met to saving her kingdom from her sister and bringing back spring, Anna won the hearts of the crowd. Elsa, not to be outdone by her sister, had the audience on the edge of their seats for her iconic solo number “Let it Go.” 

The iconic on-stage costume change went off without a hitch thanks to the entirely self-directed work of the tech crew. 

Lux Barnum, PHS senior and co-stage manager has seen both backstage and center stage, experience which helps them understand the demands of both positions. 

“When you’re an actor, you’re in the scene so deeply and you’re not really aware of things going on around you. And so it’s the exact opposite when you’re on tech, you’re focusing on almost everything but the actors,” Barnum said. 

With actors jumping between intricately decorated ice platforms, and the tall, steep staircase on which Elsa performs ‘Let it Go,’ it is impossible not to recognize the amount of work that went into every aspect of the production. 

“The kids are drawn to a successful program, they’re not idiots. They know when things are good or not,” Mielke said. “I feel sometimes as adults we’ll say, you know, you did your best and that’s fine. Sometimes that’s great advice. I’m not going to say, sometimes it’s not great advice, but sometimes it’s ok to say, you didn’t practice hard enough.” 

From the packed theater to the smiling faces of parents and children alike, it is safe to say that PHS Drama Club did practice hard enough for this production. 

‘Frozen’ is still on this week, with shows at 7 p.m. on Thursday, Friday and Saturday as well as a 2 p.m. matinee show on Saturday.