Parrish Community High School (PCHS) in Parrish is now the only Florida high school to have earned the rights to produce a full-length theatrical version of Disney’s Frozen. Frozen is not yet licensed to any theaters in Florida outside of the Broadway tour.
Over the last summer, PCHS Bulls Theatre Company and Olga Pena, journalism teacher and director of Bulls Theatre Company, applied to the United States of Frozen: Love Is an Open Door competition. The contest was a collaboration between the Disney Theatrical Group, Educational Theatre Association, and Music Theatre International. Only one school in each U.S. state and territory was selected.
PCHS was established only four years ago. Moreover, it has only produced one theatrical production of The Wizard of Oz.
Pena explained, “I entered our theater department in the contest over the summer because I knew we had the talent onstage and in the orchestra pit to bring this production to life. Because we had only one musical under our belt, as a new theater department and school, I did not think we had much of a chance, but I did not want my students to ask why we did not try. Thankfully, examples from just that one production last school year and the vision for how we would produce Frozen was enough to win.”
PCHS has performed four sold-out performances.
Pena added, “Many of our students want to pursue theater arts after graduation and have dreams of Broadway, so being put on this national platform, piloting a show, was a mind-blowing honor. It also inspires such pride to get to represent the state of Florida, especially as a 4-year-old school.”
“It opened many doors and gave the opportunity for more than 100 students involved in the production to bond and create a theater family,” Pena said.
Emily Mentzer, a graduating senior who played Anna, said, “It is such an honor. The idea that we are such a new school and already at the national competitor caliber is wild. I am so excited to leave Frozen as a legacy of what we are capable of doing.”
Pena said, “Bulls Theatre Company and the Performing Arts Department is filled with brilliantly talented students with great character and commitment to excelling in the arts, led by teachers who are passionate about arts education that extends from the classroom to entertaining our community and showing them the power of the performing arts.”
For more information, please visit https://pchsbullstheatre.com.
