Get ready to stand up and cheer director Glenn Casale’s ingeniously reconceived, spectacularly staged revival of Disney The Little Mermaid at La Mirada Theatre for the Performing Arts, the absolute best of the now eight productions I’ve seen of this most enchanting of musicals.

Like the animated feature that started it all for Disney back in 1989, The Little Mermaid’s 2007 Broadway adaptation recounts the classic Hans Christian Andersen tale of Ariel (Leianna Weaver), a sea sprite with dreams of walking on dry land, both literally and down the aisle with the decidedly human Prince Eric (Coleman Cummings).

Disney Studios added their trademark brand of supporting characters including Sebastian the Jamaican crab (Dana Orange), Flounder the blue-finned Flounder (Kevin Kulp), Scuttle the word-inventing seagull (Quintan Craig), and Ursula the evil sea witch (Regina Le Vert) and her aquatic henchmen Flotsam and Jetsam (Mitchell Lam Hau and Christopher Diem), ocean creatures which the stage adaptation tweaks ever so slightly. (Flounder, for instance, now has a Ducky Dale-style crush on his own personal Andie, aka Ariel.)

And since a movie running well under ninety minutes does not a full-length Broadway musical make, book writer Doug Wright has expanded (and occasionally revised) Ron Clements and John Musker’s screenplay, with Alan Menken and Glenn Slater adding a bunch of new songs to join the Menken/Howard Ashman classics “Part Of Your World,” “Under The Sea,” and “Kiss The Girl.”

 The result of all this masterful tinkering is a Broadway musical dazzler that may not follow the movie to the letter (gone, for example, is Ursula’s transformation into an Ariel-voiced “Vanessa”) but fleshes out characters with new songs. We learn, for instance, about Ursula’s evil past in “Daddy’s Little Angel” (added to the Casale reimagining), Scuttle gets to school Ariel in “Positoovity,” and Prince Eric is given his own solos in “Her Voice” and “One Step Closer.”

Magnifying the Broadway pizzazz are musical numbers brilliantly choreographed by John MacInnes that give us Vegas glitter, glitz, and plumes in “Under The Sea,” vaudeville-style tapping in “Positoovity,” and ‘60s girl-group moves in “She’s In Love.”

All of this underwater magic takes place on Kenneth Foy and Mark Koss’s fantastically fanciful sets with characters sporting Amy Clark’s supremely imaginative costumes, Kaitlin Yagen’s multicolored wigs, and Madison Medrano’s equally fabulous makeup designs. (Kudos to Clark for figuring out how to do without fins in addition to adapting fish and crustaceans to human proportions.) Add to that Charlie Morrison’s vibrant lighting design and you’ve got the most gorgeous palette of saturated colors I can recall seeing in a Broadway musical.

Most excitingly of all, unlike Broadway’s Little Mermaid (which apparently kept its performers glued to the ground), Casale’s reimagining features masterful flight choreography by Paul Rubin that allows Ariel and her ocean friends to “swim” high above the stage (or in Skuttle’s case to take to the air in equally fine fettle).

Weaver, the breakout star of Musical Theatre West’s The Wizard of Oz tops even that endearing, gloriously sung performance with the cutest, spunkiest, and most charming of Ariels.

Princes don’t get any more dashing or dreamy or power-piped than Cummings’ Eric, schooled in princely ways by the always terrific Kevin Symons as Grimsby.

And speaking of big voices, just wait till Le Vert’s deliciously evil Ursula belts out “Poor Unfortunate Souls” to reach the back row of the balcony, abetted in her evil deeds by the sizzlingly sinister Hau and Diem as malevolent moray eels Flotsam and Jetsam.

The infectiously charming Orange steals every scene he’s in as Caribbean-accented Sebastian except possibly for the one that pits him against the incomparable Jeff Skowron’s French-accented Chef Louis. (I’ll call that one a draw.)

As for Ariel’s finned and feathered besties, expect to have your heart stolen by Kulp’s love-struck, glasses-sporting Flounder and Craig’s wild and wacky Scuttle, the latter of whom taps his webbed feet off in “Positoovity,” backed to showstopping effect by fellow gulls Daniel Dawson, Kurt Kemper, and Edgar Lopez.

Trent Mills makes for a big-voiced, big-hearted Triton, father not only to Ariel but also to the sensational girl-group sextette of Katie Cruz (Arists), Cristyn Dang (Adella), Andrea Dobbins (Andrina), Tayler Mettra (Aquata), Neema Muteti (Attina), and Candace J. Washington (Alana).

Kevin Corte, Christopher Ho, Michael James, and Madison Miyuki Sprague complete a supremely talented cast, with swings Helen Tait and Josh Zacher poised to step into featured roles at a moment’s notice.

Last but not least, music director/conductor Brent Crayon and his pitch-perfect pit orchestra do their own dazzling as does sound designer Julie Ferrin.

Zacher is associate choreographer and dance captain. Gary C. Echelmeyer is associate lighting designer. Talia Krispel is production stage manager and Julian Olive and Audrey Colindres are assistant stage managers. Casting is by Lindsay Brooks. David Elzer is publicist.

Tiny tots may be the ones begging their parents to take them to see Ariel live on stage, but you don’t have to have kids in tow to fall head-over-heels for this most adult-friendly of family musicals.

Jam-packed with humor and heart to match its eye-popping spectacle, La Mirada’s Disney The Little Mermaid is musical theater entertainment at its stand-up-and-cheer best.

La Mirada Theatre for the Performing Arts, 14900 La Mirada Boulevard, La Mirada.
www.lamiradatheatre.com

–Steven Stanley
June 1, 2024
Photos: Jason Niedle/TETHOS

Tags: Alan Menken, Howard Ashman, La Mirada Theatre For The Performing Arts, Los Angeles Theater Review, McCoy Rigby Entertainment