Your weekend arts forecast: With ‘Frozen’ and ‘Ice,’ it’s a chilly Disney-fest

The 2013 movie Frozen, as with all successful Disney animated musicals, was turned into a Broadway stage show (it’s been around since 2018 and was nominated for a Best Musical Tony).

The stage musical is now on a cross-country tour, which began a lengthy run Wednesday at Morsani Hall, in Tampa’s Straz Center. The show features all the songs from the movie, plus a dozen (!) new ones.

Frozen tickets are here.

Elsa-on-skates in the Disney On Ice show “Let’s Celebrate” at Amalie Arena.

Not to be outdone, Feld Entertainment’s Disney on Ice has laid claim to Amalie Arena, where Let’s Celebrate will skate onto the stage today through Saturday (for seven performances). This musical extravaganza features more than 50 Disney characters (including several from Frozen, who really do seem to get around), plus an international team of award-winning figure skaters.

Disney On Ice information and tickets here.

Music

One-time Guns N Roses guitarist Slash is at Ruth Eckerd Hall Friday, with his regular band Myles Kennedy & The Conspirators. They’ve just put out their fourth album together, titled 4. Get tickets here.

At the Capitol Theatre, the singer/songwriter train keeps a’rollin with a Saturday show from Paul Thorn. Get tickets here.

Next Tuesday (that’s March 29), Sam Beam (aka Iron & Wine) is at the Cap with a solo acoustic show. Tickets.

And it’s an all-acoustic evening Saturday at the Palladium Theater, with the 10^th annual Listening Room Festival – with Danny Schmidt, Mare Wakefield & Nomad, Sam Robbins and The Whispering Tree. Tickets.

Matt Schofield

British blues guitarist Matt Schofield and his trio will tear into the Palladium Saturday; Vintage Guitar Magazine calls him “The best of his generation’s European guitar players.” Cool factor: There’s no bass guitar in the Schofield Trio – the organist plays all the basslines on a keyboard, with his left hand, while his right is filling the room with soulful Hammond B3 (the third guy, of course, is a drummer). Tickets.

The legendary vocal group the Manhattan Transfer is at Central Park Performing Arts Center in Largo Saturday (4 and 8 p.m.). Here’s our recent interview with Janis Siegel of the group (ticket link included).

Woodstock veteran Melanie plays at 5:30 p.m. Sunday at the Safety Harbor Art & Music Center, 706 Second St. N. in Safety Harbor. We spoke with Melanie this week – here’s that story (it includes the ticket link).

Cue the orchestra

Time For Three

Time For Three – Charles Yang (violin, vocals), Nicolas “Nick” Kendall (violin, vocals) and Ranaan Meyer (double bass, vocals) – joins The Florida Orchestra at the Mahaffey Theater this weekend for the world premiere of Contact, composed by Kevin Puts as a commission by the San Francisco Symphony, The Philadelphia Orchestra, Sun Valley Music Festival and TFO.

Puts won a Pulitzer Prize in 2012 for his opera Silent Night. Time For Three defies categorization, as the music the trio plays veers between classical, country, folk/Americana and jazz.

If that description doesn’t help, here’s a video of Time For Three:

The Florida Orchestra program (8 p.m. Saturday, 2 p.m. Sunday) also features performances (without Time For Three) of Aaron Copland’s John Henry (Railroad Ballad for Orchestra), Leonard Bernstein’s Symphonic Dances From West Side Story and Three Latin-American Dances by Gabriela Lena Frank.

Daniel Black conducts. Tickets are here.

Curtain up

It’s a big weekend for theater, as several shows are debuting. To wit: Murder on the Orient Express (Friday, Stageworks); Lady Day at Emerson’s Bar and Grill (Saturday, freeFall) and Breadcrumbs (Thursday, Studio Grand Central). It’s also the final weekend for Jobsite’s A Clockwork Orange.

And still more

Alexander Jones’ Project Alchemy is back at thestudio@620 Friday and Saturday (7 p.m. nightly) with SHIFT,  A Dance + Music Experience, a collaboration with composer – – (minusminus). “This 60-minute immersive, participatory experience invites the viewer to take their place within the work in whatever form and medium they choose, from the time they enter the space to their departure. What will shift within you?” Tickets.

Your weekend comedy roundup: These two shows couldn’t be more different. First, stuntman and Jackass star Steve-O does dumb derring-do stuff you shouldn’t do at home on his “Bucket List Tour” tonight at Ferguson Hall in the Straz Center (no one under 18 is allowed to possess a ticket, but the rest of you can buy them here). Next, that oh-so-droll veteran standup Rita Rudner is onstage Friday at the Capitol Theatre (tickets).

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