The cast of Arts Bonita’s upcoming production of Disney’s “Frozen” is led by three local actors on summer break from college and another who begins her pursuit of a bachelor of arts in acting in the fall.
Arts Bonita Actors Theatre has cast Mia Zottolo in the role of Elsa. She’s home for the summer from NYU, where she attends the prestigious Tisch School of the Arts. She says her classes have changed the way she views her craft.
“My biggest takeaway is definitely letting go and just allowing yourself to make choices and not being embarrassed by those choices because a lot of what we learned in school was it's OK to fail. You should be failing so that you can grow,” said Zottolo.
It’s the identical lesson Lantz Hemmert learned this year at the University of Miami, where he’s pursuing a degree in musical theater.
“Always be fearless,” Hemmert emphasized. “Can't go into anything with like, held back at all. You need to go everything full force, energy, full mistakes, whatever, and then you can get dialed back from there. But make the biggest, craziest choices … and just have fun.”
Landon Maas spent the past year at Pace University in New York City. His script analysis class has really helped him understand what motivates his character, Prince Hans of the Southern Isle.
“For Hans, it's very important, because even though he is the villain in the end of the story, throughout most of it, he's this charming guy, and in the very beginning with Anna, he's very vulnerable,” Maas noted.
Shennan Nelson will be attending the University of North Carolina School of the Arts in August. While she hasn’t had the benefit of a year of college, she’s taking the tools Director Kody Jones has given her to infuse Anna with the love she feels in real life for bestie Mia Zottolo.
“We're very, very close, so I feel like the sister dynamic, it's such an unbreakable bond that no matter how the other person is feeling, you just want so badly what's best for them,” Nelson shared. “And I feel so much, so much love when I look at Mia and I see her perform and I see the great things that she's accomplishing.”
This fabulous foursome is eager to show audiences what they’ve learned, and what they now know.
“Frozen” is onstage at Arts Bonita Center for Performing Arts July 17-26.
MORE INFORMATION:
“Frozen the Musical” is an adaptation of the 2013 film of the same name with music and lyrics by Robert Lopez and Kristen Anderson-Lopez and a book by playwright Jennifer Lee.
Cast
The cast for “Frozen” consists of 42 actors, vis:
- Elsa: Mia Zottolo (Vocal Captain)
- Anna: Shennan Nelson
- Kristoff: Lantz Hemmert
- Hans: Landon Maas
- Olaf: Carter Gurule
- Sven: Louis Fuelling & Maecy Lias
- Duke of Weselton: Arian Won
- Pabbie: Connor Devall
- Bulda: Kamila Sanchez
- Oaken: Eric Ortiz
- Young Elsa: Avery Acosta
- Young Anna: Gia Anderson
- Bishop: Jaelynn Lias
- King Agnarr: Owen Atkins
- Queen Iduna: Hannah Hansen
- Hidden Fox Soloist 3: Elsee Cribbs
- Hidden Fox Soloist 1: Tavi Hunt
- Hidden Fox Soloist 2: Samantha Calero
- Hidden Fox Soloist 4: Mia Pimentel
- Hidden Folk Child: Payton Hume
Ensemble
- Amelia Guzman
- Avery Acosta
- Bennett Reistad
- Bennett Wilcoxson
- Ella Maas
- Elsee Cribbs
- Grace Lowery
- Jaelynn Lias
- Maddie Snyder
- Mia Pimentel
- Tavi Hunt
Children’s ensemble
- Aria Anderson
- Cassidy Whaba
- David Pimentel
- Declan McLaughlin
- Elena Guerra
- Ella Pastir
- Elodie Sword
- Gia Anderson
- Griffin Stryker
- Iris Lyon
- Julio Sanchez
- Lucy Pustizzi
- Nicholas Albanis
- Peyton Hume
- Robert Minger
- Taj Oomah
- Zoe Pimentel
Music
“Frozen the Musical” features over 20 songs.
Act I
- "Vuelie / Let the Sun Shine On" – Company
- "A Little Bit of You" – Young Elsa & Young Anna
- "Do You Want to Build a Snowman?" – Young Anna, Young Elsa & Anna
- "For the First Time in Forever" – Anna, Elsa & Company
- "Hans of the Southern Isles" – Hans
- "Dangerous to Dream" – Elsa & Company
- "Love Is an Open Door" – Anna & Hans
- "Reindeer(s) Are Better Than People" – Kristoff
- "What Do You Know About Love?" – Anna & Kristoff
- "In Summer" – Olaf
- "Hans of the Southern Isles (Reprise)" – Hans, Weselton & Company
- "Let It Go" – Elsa
Act II
- "Hygge" – Oaken, Kristoff, Anna, Olaf & Company
- "For the First Time in Forever (Reprise)" – Anna & Elsa
- "Dangerous to Dream (Reprise)" – Elsa
- "Fixer Upper" – Pabbie, Olaf & Company
- "Kristoff Lullaby" – Kristoff
- "Monster" – Elsa, Hans & Men
- "Hans of the Southern Isles (Reprise 2)" – Hans & Anna
- "True Love" – Anna
- "Colder by the Minute" – Anna, Elsa, Kristoff, Hans & Company
- "Finale" – Company
Robert Lopez and Kristen Anderson-Lopez composed all songs except for “Vuelie,” which was written by Christophe Beck and Frode Fjellheim.
Production history
The show held its pre-Broadway engagement at the Buell Theatre at the Denver Center for the Performing Arts from Aug. 17 to Oct. 1, 2017. It began previews on Broadway at the St. James Theatre on Feb. 22, 2018 and officially opened on March 22, 2018. The show closed on Broadway after 26 previews and 825 performances due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
Synopsis
“Frozen” is the timeless tale of two sisters, pulled apart by a mysterious secret. One is Elsa, who possesses the power to create ice and snow with the flick of her wrists. Regrettably, she wasn’t taught and doesn’t know how to control that power so she isolates herself from everyone to avoid unintended consequences.
The other is Elsa’s devoted sister Anna, who was just about killed as a small child when Elsa accidently froze her. Her memory of that trauma was erased, and as a young woman she’s left to wonder what she did wrong to cause her sister to shun her.
Thirteen years later, Elsa is to be coronated. Elsa struggles to suppress her powers during the ceremony, but when Anna defends her impulsive engagement to Prince Hans, Elsa's fear erupts, freezing Anna's heart and blanketing Arendelle in eternal winter. Elsa flees to the North Mountain, where she builds an ice palace and embraces her freedom in the iconic song "Let It Go," declaring herself liberated from societal constraints.
Determined to end the freeze and mend their bond, Anna sets out with the rugged ice harvester Kristoff and his reindeer Sven, purchasing supplies from the cheerful Oaken at his trading post. Along the way, they encounter Olaf, a cheerful snowman unwittingly created by Elsa's magic, who dreams of experiencing summer and provides comic relief with his naive optimism. The group faces blizzards and reaches Elsa's palace, but a confrontation escalates when Elsa accidentally freezes Anna's heart further, forcing Kristoff to rush her back to the trolls for aid.
Grand Pabbie reveals that only an act of true love can thaw Anna's heart, leading her to believe it must be a kiss from Hans. Back in Arendelle, Hans reveals his villainous plot to seize the throne, abandoning Anna to die and capturing Elsa during a public trial. As marshals close in on the imprisoned Elsa, Anna races back on Sven, arriving just in time to sacrifice herself—blocking Hans's sword meant for Elsa—transforming into ice in an ultimate act of sisterly love.
This selfless gesture thaws Anna's heart, teaching Elsa that love is the key to controlling her powers. Now fully empowered, Elsa ends the winter with an embrace, restoring Arendelle to summer. Hans is exposed and banished, the Duke of Weselton's schemes thwarted, and the sisters reunite fully, with Elsa blessing Anna's budding romance with Kristoff while Olaf enjoys a brief summer under an ice cloud.
Dramaturg note
The inspiration for Elsa’s character and powers traces its origins to Hans Christian Andersen’s fairy tale “The Snow Queen.” However, the creators of “Frozen” took significant creative liberties with the story and the character to make it fit into their narrative. While Andersen’s Snow Queen is portrayed as a villainous figure, Elsa is a complex and sympathetic character whose powers are a metaphor for her emotional journey.
More about Mia Zottolo
Zottolo spent the past year at the New York University Tisch School of the Arts. Known for its rigorous curriculum and distinguished faculty, it has emerged over the past 60 years as the country’s pre-eminent center for the study of the performing, cinematic and emerging media arts. Regarded as one of the top three theater programs in the nation, Tisch School of the Arts receives thousands of applications each year. Incoming freshman classes are limited to under 30 students.
The mere fact that Zottolo received one of those slot is an acknowledgement that she already had mad acting and singing skills. A product of Janelle Laux’s North Fort Myers High/Red Knight Theatre musical theater program, her credits included The Leading Player in “Pippin” (for which she was runner-up for Best Actor in a Female-Identifying Role at the 2025 High School Musical Theatre Awards), Katherine Howard in Six the Musical, Miss Sandra in “All Shook Up” (for which she received Best Supporting Actor in a Female-Identifying Role at the 2024 High School Musical Theatre Awards) and Camille in “Mise En Scene” at North, as well as Judas Iscariot in “Jesus Christ Superstar,” Eurydice in “Hadestown Teen Edition” for Arts Bonita Center for Performing Arts (2024), Patrice in “13: The Musical” for Players Circle Studio (2024) and the Narrator in “Joseph and the Technicolor Dreamcoat.” Zottolo was also in Arts Bonita Actors Theatre’s 2025 production of “Hair.”
But even though she developed an enviable work ethic during her high school theater career, she was surprised by the workload at Tisch.
“It was a whole lot of work,” Zottolo acknowledged. “We worked from 9 a.m. to 6 p.m. doing dance, music, learning how to read music. We're working together as a group, singing together. And it took a lot to settle into that schedule of go, go, go, go, go.”
Because class sizes are small, the intensive schedule encourages camaraderie.
“We have a class, then we have lunch together,” she noted. “You get super close with your friends and your cohorts because we're with each other the entire day. We're walking to class in New York City together. We're walking to lunch, we're getting lunch together, and then we walk back to class. It's just such an amazing experience meeting all these new people and then spending the whole day with them doing classes and then learning all the things that we're learning.”
Her experiences at Tisch have boosted her confidence. Not in the sense of whether or not she has the talent to be a top-tier performer. But in her willingness to make bold choices and take chances in how she performs a role – realizing that in so doing, she not only improves as an actor, but contributes to the success of the production.
“If you never try, you're never gonna get better,” said Zottolo. “So coming here [for “Frozen”], I was like, OK, I just need to go full out and do everything that it needs to be and not hold back because that is holding me back as an actor and it's holding the show back. So that's the biggest takeaway [from my freshman year at Tisch], just allowing yourself to fail and pushing yourself to do it.”
When asked about her biggest surprise at Tisch, her answer was twofold.
First, she was pleasantly surprised about “the New York vibe.”
“It's so fashionable, I would say,” she explained. “Everyone is just dressed like it's a fashion show and New York is very hustle and bustle. We’re always on the move. I like that energy of walking quick and getting to class. I don't like the slow pace. I like the quick pace that New York is."
From the vantage of her studies, it was her physical acting class.
“I expected to be doing more body and movement,” she said. “Instead we played theater games. But those games taught us so much about just going full out. You can never say no. You have to keep going, keep the game going. That class changed the way I viewed how to act because you never fail until you give up and that was the biggest thing we learned in that class.”
People familiar with “Frozen” typically equate the musical with “Let It Go,” a song in which Elsa finally accepts her magical powers to create ice and snow with the flick of her wrists.
“’Let It Go’ [is] such a … I want to say girl power song because she's finally able to do the one thing that everyone in her entire life has told her not to do,” noted Zottolo. “Her whole life she’s had to lock herself in her room and never talk to anybody. I know that there are a lot of people that are treated that way in real life, who are told to be less than what they are and told to be quiet and to hide who they truly are from other people. This song relates to all those kids who are told to be something less than what they are and it is just such a good empowerment song of letting go of your past self and allowing yourself to embrace your differences.”
But that’s not the denouement of the story.
Now that she’s accepted who she truly is, now that she’s accepted her power to create ice and snow, what next?
Elsa crosses that bridge in the song “Monster.”
“’Monster’ is basically Elsa debating about whether the people in her kingdom would be better off if she were to die,” Zottolo observed. “That's a very serious song. I wouldn't expect a song from Disney to be that deep, especially for a character as beloved as Elsa. In it, she is so torn about whether she should try and save [the people in her kingdom from the perpetual season of ice and snow she inadvertently caused] or if it [her efforts to reverse the spell] will make everything worse. So she’s debating with herself about whether everyone will be better off without her.”
It’s a moment which, in Zottolo’s opinion, is even more pivotal to Elsa’s personal development than occurs during “Let It Go.”
“That song is so important to the cast and the show itself because Elsa, her whole life has just been closed off and she has been told to be less than what she is, and then when she finally reaches the point where she is comfortable in herself, she thinks it's bad for everyone else.”
In spite of her formidable stage experience prior to leaving for NYU, Zottolo confesses to being nervous about performing in “Frozen.” That’s attributable in large part to the fact that she has not performed in a show since “Hair.” Unlike other college theater programs, Tisch freshmen aren’t given performance opportunities during their first year of studies.
“I sang a song at a cabaret in the city, but it's not the same as memorizing lines and the lyrics to three songs and all this blocking and connecting to the people onstage with you,” she conceded. “So I'm definitely very nervous, but I am also so excited to get back onstage.”
One thing that’s made her re-acclamation easier is performing with Shennan Nelson.
“Me and Shennan are super close. We've been best friends since pre-COVID and up doing all these shows together and she's my best friend in real life and she's my best friend in the show.”
For more, read/hear “Cape actor Mia Zottolo headed to NYU Tisch School of the Arts in the fall.”
More on Shennan Nelson
Shennan Nelson also talked about her relationship with Mia Zottolo in the context of them playing estranged sisters in “Frozen.”
“Mia and I have grown up together. We've known each other for years and years and years. I just want the best for her, and I feel like that's how Anna feels when she sees Elsa struggling. She just wants to help and be there for her. ‘I know you're struggling but you don't need to hide from me because I love you and I'm there for you no matter what.’ I feel like that's the best part about this whole show is their relationship and the struggle of finding that honesty and that love that they know is there.”
Whereas Zottolo is Broadway bound, Nelson sees her future in film.
“I'm attending the University of North Carolina School of the Arts and will be majoring in acting,” said Nelson. “My goal is to do film. I want to pursue film acting and this school focuses on actors first, which I really, really like.”
While Nelson loves and respects the theater milieu, the subtlety of film appeals to her more than the big, bold displays of emotion that theater normally requires.
“In film acting, you see every emotion,” Nelson explained. “You see every thought behind their eyes. It feels like you're in the story with them when you're watching it, and I want people to feel that when they watch me because I feel like a lot of my emotions you probably couldn't see from afar on the stage, but I feel like a lot of that would be seen in film.”
Concentrating on film acting doesn’t preclude doing theater, especially musical theater, as well. Either way, she expects to fully utilize the techniques that Director Kody Jones has imparted to her over the course of her work with him.
She last worked with Jones when he cast her to play Carrie White in the eponymous musical. [Read/hear “Three high school seniors dig deep to play their characters in ‘Carrie the Musical.’”] Before that, she was in Arts Bonita’s productions of “Hair,” “Hadestown: Teen Edition,” “Spring Awakening” and “Bulletproof Backpack.”
“I know as soon as I get to college, it's just going to be a matter of integrating what I’ve already learned,” she said. “I already have such a good base on what I'm going to be learning at school and now it's just time to apply it to everything. Everything's just going to click once I get there. Everything he's ever taught me is just going to finally come together and make more sense, I feel like.”
Nelson loves acting “because I like to connect with the people around me and I think that acting is a chance to portray very real things that go on in the real world that people are sometimes afraid of talking about or afraid of showing.”
Inhabiting the characters she’s played has facilitated her personal growth and development in myriad ways. “Playing different characters teaches me more about humanity,” she said. “Every single time I play someone, it teaches me the different types of complex emotions that each character has. My understanding of how they grow teaches me more about humankind and how I can grow from those characters and their issues and their flaws as well as my own as I’m connecting with the character.”
Although her trajectory may be more in film than stage, playing the part of Anna has given Nelson an opportunity to expand her vocal repertoire.
“This show is very different for me vocally,” she remarked. “I'm very much a belter and just a very different vocal type than a princess, so it's been fun trying to figure out where that balance is for me with where my voice sits comfortably and where I want it to be for this role, because I feel like everyone's expecting a nice princess tone, and I'm gonna take a little twist on it, you know? Still keep honest to myself, I think, with the vocals.”
Beyond that, Nelson is just excited to offer audiences an upbeat, positive entertainment option that contrasts sharply with the dark, depressing political climate prevailing in the country as it approaches the 250th anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence.
“Everything has been so dark and and mysterious recently, and this is just, it's going to be a really fun, fun change for everyone,” Nelson added. “I feel like this show does a great job of teaching the lesson that you don't have to do things alone. There are people who look out for you and no matter what you're going through, there are people that love and are looking out for you and care about you. And that’s heartwarming.”
Nelson’s other stage credits include Elle Woods in ‘Legally Blonde” for Canterbury School and “Matilda the Musical,” “Spongebob” and “Newsies” at Florida Rep Education.
More on Lantz Hemmert
Lantz Hemmert spent his freshman year attending the University of Miami. Like Zottolo, he was somewhat astonished by the workload he experienced.
“It was very busy workload,” Hemmert reported. “I had classes from 8 to 5 p.m. I had acting classes, movement classes, which is similar to acting but more in the body and getting comfortable with yourself. I had music theory classes, learning how to read music and how to understand music better. I had voice lessons, a dance class and a theater design class, where we learned about lighting and how to build like the stage and everything, followed by a theater tech class, where we learned about hanging the lights. And we had singing for the stage class that's a mix of everything. And all these classes are two hours long. No breaks. Just constant work. But it’s great.”
As Zottolo discovered at Tisch School of the Arts, the University of Miami does not afford freshman theater students with performance opportunities. Instead, the focus is on performance training.
“In our Signing for the Stage class, we do musical numbers and even vaudeville stuff where you could choose any number and make it comedic,” he related. “We worked on ‘60s, ‘70s pop, but that class pretty much incorporated every class that we do in our BFA program. It combines acting, singing, dancing, everything together to make a piece as if you were on Broadway. And our professor stops and gives notes constantly until it's perfect.”
But he did get to do tech work for two shows performed in the University of Miami’s New Box New Musicals theater which, interestingly, presents new musicals that are written and developed by students of the Tisch School of the Arts, Graduate Musical Theatre Writing Program at New York University and produced under the direction of N. David Williams.
“We take a bunch of their musicals and my professor chooses his favorite ones and then he casts like five of those shows, so we’re able to be a part of new musicals,” Hemmert said.
His class load at Miami has helped Hemmert in two areas with respect to his role in “Frozen.”
“The best thing that I've learned this year is really how to feel the music and understand it,” Hemmert said. “I really didn't know how to read music at all before going to college. Now I'm looking at the whole page, not just my line, and seeing how the music wants you to move is just so great. And it really works with this show. It's helped me build my character. It's helped my voice a lot. Obviously it's Disney, so it seems like easy and fun, but there's always so much deeper material in the music.”
Of course, an ambitious musical theater program is not for the faint of heart. The rigorous workload gives Hemmert and his classmates little chance to experience normal college life. His freshman class experienced a 10 percent attrition rate, dropping from 22 to 19 students, and next year’s schedule will be even more demanding.
“In addition to the classwork, next year we'll have class all day and then we'll have rehearsals from 6 to 11. But if you love it, you love it.”
Hemmert felt that he had an advantage over his classmates at Miami because of the training he received from Kody Jones.
“Especially with acting, I felt at the top of my class,” Hemmert said. “I really know all the techniques, which we didn't even get into last year. We were starting at the basics. A lot of the people in my class have really strong voices and are really great singers, but some of them weren't the strongest actors or haven't been able to have that chance to be onstage and play a leading man or play all these different types of characters that Kody has given me the opportunity to do. So I'm very thankful to have worked with Kody and gotten to do all those shows and all those lessons. That's why I'm back. I was going to go try some other summer stock things, but this is just as good, if not better.”
Hemmert was last seen on the Arts Bonita stage in the role of Tevye in “Fiddler on the Roof.” For more, read/hear “Lantz Hemmert shares a zest for life with his ‘Fiddler on the Roof’ character, Tevye.”
Other stage credits include the lead in “Jesus Christ Superstar” and “The Boy from Block 66” at Arts Bonita.
Support for WGCU’s arts & culture reporting comes from the Estate of Myra Janco Daniels, the Charles M. and Joan R. Taylor Foundation, and Naomi Bloom in loving memory of her husband, Ron Wallace.
