On my other blog's email list I just posted a weekly email featuring costume quick changes and there is none better than the costume change for Elsa while she's singing Let It Go in the staged musical version of "Frozen." In the email I included a YouTube video that shows a whole bunch of performances just at the moment of the costume change.
The song "Let It Go" was the break-out hit from the movie "Frozen" - the video on YouTube has been watched 423 million times. It's a very good song, sung by Broadway legend Idina Menzel.
But the song has truly found a home as a show-stopping number in the stage musical version of Frozen. It is the perfect musical theater number, showing the moment when a main character decides to let go and fully experience her power, expressed through singing and staging, which not only features the quick gown-rip change, but also her glove and cloak fly away through there air - as they do in the animated version - and magical lighting effects. But except for the singing, the costume change is the star of the scene and you can hear the audience roar in approval when it happens.
My favorite Elsa of all I've scene is Charissa Hogeland - a very unassuming-looking person when not in costume as you can see in her Instagram - but she nails the role of Elsa so hard - her acting is superb, showing Elsa's dawning realization that she can do just about anything now - this is why Elsa is really the big bad of the movie, in spite of that creepy prince guy. But I especially love Hogeland's criss-cross hand gesture right before the costume tear-away - it really sells the whole thing. I don't know if that was her idea, or the director's, but no other Elsa does it, including Elsas from the same Broadway show period, so I think it was her own idea. She also does the best arm choreography after the change - I don't know if you can call it choreography, but whatever it is, all the Elsas do it, and Hogeland does it the best. You can see her entire performance of the song in the video above. Brava!