Mickey and friends: Disney show takes the stage in Johnstown, audience encouraged to play along
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Mickey, Minnie and friends are ready to rock and roll.
Disney Live! “Mickey’s Music Festival” is coming to Cambria County War Memorial on Saturday for three shows at 1, 4 and 7 p.m.
The stage show is brand new, Tom Grenell, the arena’s general manager, said.
With the trio of shows in one day, “it’s really going to be a whirlwind adventure for all of us,” he said. “We have fantastic staff, so I’m expecting it to be a smooth running operation … and we will see a tremendous amount of guests during those performances all day.”
Among those taking the stage is performer Maria Yi Donoy, 28, who spoke to the Mirror last week.
“Disney Live! ‘Mickey’s Music Festival’ is a rock concert that Mickey, Minnie, Donald and Goofy are trying to put on with all their Disney friends from ‘Aladdin,’ ‘The Little Mermaid’ and ‘Toy Story,’ and I am part of the ensemble and the cast, so I get the lucky opportunity of being one of Mic-key’s backup dancers,” she said.
Audience participation at the show is encouraged.
“The audience can expect a lot of audience participation, so it’s not one of those shows where we just want you to sit in your seat. We want you out of your seat, dancing, clapping along, singing along,” she said. “You definitely see the kids jumping up right away and it’s even fun because sometimes the adults really get into it, and that’s what we love, because it’s not just a children’s show, it really is a family show, and we want the parents and the adults and everyone to have just as much fun as the kids.”
Grenell said the show is “going to be more Broadway for little people, if you will.”
Yi Donoy loves seeing the audience members’ “smiling faces,” she said.
“The great part about this show is that we take people out of their everyday lives and we want them to forget about any problems they may have going on and just have a really good time,” she said. “And for 90 minutes just bonding with their kids, and making these wonderful, magical memories that these kids will remember when they are older and they (will) think about those times they got to spend with their family and maybe some day they’ll take their kids to come see a show like this.”
Mirror Staff Writer Amanda Gabeletto is at 949-7030. Follow her on Facebook (Amanda Gabeletto Altoona Mirror), Twitter (@AmandaGabeletto), and on her Mirror blog “House of Gab” at www.altoonamirror.com.