– Under The Sea: The Little Mermaid Opens Starlight’s 67th Season

Starlight Theatre opened its 67^th season of live Broadway entertainment last night with its production of Disney The Little Mermaid, and the girls and I were there to see it happen.

The show runs through June 11, with a total of 8 shows to choose from. Tickets for Disney The Little Mermaid at Starlight Theatre are on sale now for $14 to $102. Tickets are available online at www.kcstarlight.com, by calling 816.363.STAR (7827) or at the Starlight box office at 4600 Starlight Road, Kansas City, MO 64132. All performances begin at 8 p.m.

Based upon Hans Christian Andersen’s timeless tale of love and nearly 30 years after the beloved animated film was released, Disney The Little Mermaid continues to spark the imaginations of the young and young at heart. The musical tells the story of an adventurous young mermaid who lives in a magical kingdom beneath the sea, yet longs to leave her ocean home and live in the world above. It also features the songs we all know and love, including such favorites as “Part of Your World,” “Kiss the Girl” and the Academy Award-winning “Under the Sea.” Along with the classic songs from the Disney film, the musical contains over a dozen new songs. My personal favorite of these new songs was “She’s In Love,” which showcased the mersisters and Flounder (Flounder was awesome, by the way).

We’ve been fans of the Disney movie for as long as we can remember, and we were so excited to see it live on stage (I was just as excited as the girls were, I’m not ashamed to admit it), and I can promise you, we sang those songs all the way home. (Okay, I did. The girls fell asleep after about five minutes in the car.)

Cast of Disney’s THE LITTLE MERMAID. Photo by Mark & Tracy Photography

I am always, ALWAYS impressed with the shows at Starlight. They are professional, entertaining, and often, spectacles of color, sound, and energy, and Little Mermaid did not disappoint. The set was actually more sparse than a lot of Starlight’s productions, but it went seamlessly from underwater to the surface scenes and back again.

AND, extra awesome bonus: for this season on, Starlight has two large screens above the stage, so you can see close ups of the actors, even from the far back seats.

Fun fact: the original Broadway cast had Titus from The Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt in the role of Sebastian.

I really felt (and my daughters agreed) that every actor had an incredible singing voice….and you can’t necessarily say that about every show you go to, no matter where or what it is.