Elsa and Anna are spending the holidays on Main Street. The Smithtown Performing Arts Center opens Frozen Jr. on Saturday, November 21 and keeps it running through December 30, a sixteen-performance stand that carries the children's theater production past Thanksgiving, through the December weekends and into the week between Christmas and New Year's. Tickets are $26.50.

The show

Frozen Jr. is the young-performer edition of the 2018 Broadway musical, which itself grew out of the animated film. The score includes the songs audiences know from the movie, written by Kristen Anderson-Lopez and Robert Lopez, along with material the pair wrote for the Broadway production. The story follows the royal sisters of Arendelle: Elsa, whose powers over ice and snow she cannot yet control, and Anna, who sets out after her when the kingdom freezes. The theater cast the production through open auditions, so the company on stage is drawn from Long Island's own young performers.

Sixteen chances to see it, including one built for sensory-sensitive families

The run opens with a 7 p.m. show on Saturday, November 21, then settles mostly into 2 p.m. matinees: Friday, November 27 through Sunday, November 29 over Thanksgiving weekend, then weekend afternoons on December 5, 6, 12, 13, 19 and 20, with the December 5 show at 7 p.m. and the December 6 show at 11 a.m. The week after Christmas brings a 2 p.m. show every day from Saturday, December 26 through Wednesday, December 30.

One date stands apart: the 7 p.m. performance on Friday, December 4 is a sensory friendly performance, adapted for children and adults who find a conventional theater environment overwhelming. For families who have sat out live theater because of the dark, the volume or the crowd, it is the date to circle.

A 1933 movie house that still runs on Main Street

The theater at 2 East Main Street has anchored downtown Smithtown since 1933, when it opened as a movie house, and the nonprofit that runs it relit the building's restored marquee this fall. The Smithtown Performing Arts Center operates as a 501(c)(3), producing main stage shows, children's theater and year-round education classes in the building. Frozen Jr. shares the holiday calendar with one more seasonal night: a Holiday Movie Night Extravaganza screening of The Polar Express on Thursday, December 3.

How to go

Frozen Jr. runs November 21 through December 30 at the Smithtown Performing Arts Center, 2 East Main Street, Smithtown. Tickets are $26.50 per person at smithtownpac.org, where each performance date links to its own seat selection, or through the box office at 631-724-3700. The sensory friendly performance is Friday, December 4 at 7 p.m.

Sources