Disney princesses to make royal visit to Salt Lake

What do 750 costume pieces, 50 gallons of water and one glowing carriage have in common?

All are needed to bring the magic of Walt Disney's princesses to life. "Disney on Ice: Princess Wishes" skates into town Wednesday.

Belle, Cinderella, Snow White, Ariel, Mulan, Jasmine and Sleeping Beauty will all make wishes come true with artistic skating and acrobatics in this 27th "Disney on Ice" show.

Tinker Bell — with the help of a little pixie dust — will take members of the audience to faraway lands — from the arid desert to the beautiful world under the sea.

And this is a magical journey. The "Sleeping Beauty" scene features a 20-foot dragon. Cinderella's carriage sparkles with more that 1,600 chasing lights and spins 15 feet above the ice. And a cascading, two-level waterfall serves as the focal point of the show.

How does Disney create the starry night sky of Jasmine's Agrabah, the deep blue hues of Ariel's sea and Snow White's blossoming forest?

Set designer Robert Little, whose work was seen last summer in Logan with the Utah Festival Opera's "Show Boat," tackles that challenge. "Empty arenas are dim, cold and barn-like. So it's a challenge to take a space that's industrial-looking and not very friendly and bring it to life."

The show features a state-of-the-art lighting structure that weighs 43,000 pounds and a set that's 42 feet high and weighs more than 10,000 pounds. It takes a 14-member crew 14 hours to build the set and five hours to take it down, which will happen in all 75 North American cities, before the show heads overseas. "Sometimes, in the smaller cities, we even have to take our own ice," Little said.

Be on the lookout for the dragon in "Sleeping Beauty." If your kids get scared during the short scene, Little reveals a secret: "It's basically a puppet manipulated by skaters. It does shoot fire, and it can move and skate, but it's just a puppet."

Other highlights include a rink full of bubbles during "The Little Mermaid" scene. And, Little said, the cast invites some audience members to come sit in a big ship that's integrated into the number.

Cinderella, Snow White and Belle will arrive by horse-drawn carriage at EnergySolutions Arena at noon Wednesday at the northeast corner plaza to the heralding trumpets of the FanFare trumpeting troupe of southern Utah. Each Princess will walk along 300 feet of red carpet, greeting the crowd.

The princesses will also meet the S.L. Princess Ambassadors — 5-year-old Audry Cayama, 3-year-old Sabrina Jensen and 8-year-old Celina Wollssieffer from the Shriner Children's Hospital, as well as 4-year-old Madeline Evans from the Make-A-Wish Foundation, who will all become princesses for a day.

---

E-mail: ehansen@desnews.com