Mickey and the Wondrous Book
| Mickey and the Wondrous Book | |
|---|---|
| Park | Hong Kong Disneyland |
| Land / area | Fantasyland |
| Type | Stage show |
| Opened | November 17, 2015 |
| Designer | Walt Disney Imagineering |
| Height req. | None |
| Status | Operating |
Mickey and the Wondrous Book is a live stage musical in Fantasyland at Hong Kong Disneyland, performed in Disney's Storybook Theater. In a magical library, Mickey Mouse and Goofy discover an enchanted book whose stories come to life; when the snowman Olaf tumbles out of its pages, Mickey is pulled inside the book and must journey from story to story to put Olaf back where he belongs. The roughly 28-minute show premiered on November 17, 2015, as a centrepiece of the resort's tenth-anniversary celebrations.[1]
History
The Storybook Theater's previous tenant was The Golden Mickeys, an awards-show-style revue that had played since the park opened in 2005. It closed on July 26, 2015, to clear the stage for the new production, which the resort had announced that June as the headline entertainment offering of its tenth anniversary.[2]
The new show was built around an original theme song, "Happily Ever After," written for the anniversary and woven through the production as its opening and finale; the song later gave its name to the Magic Kingdom fireworks spectacular in Florida. The resort's anniversary materials emphasised the scale of the staging, including 22 original costume designs and stage debuts for several characters.
The format proved exportable. An adapted version opened at Shanghai Disneyland on June 16, 2021, under the title Mickey's Storybook Adventure, staged in the Walt Disney Grand Theatre as part of that park's fifth-anniversary celebrations, with some segments swapped for stories with particular resonance for its audience. In Hong Kong, the show has continued to evolve at the edges: from November 5, 2022, selected performances have offered theatrical interpretation as part of the resort's inclusion programme.
Experience
The show opens in the library, where Mickey and Goofy — performed with articulated heads, so the characters can visibly speak and sing — find the wondrous book. Olaf, appearing as a puppet, falls out of the Frozen story, and in the scramble to return him Mickey is drawn into the book himself, leaving Goofy to turn the pages and follow along.
Each chapter becomes a full musical number. The journey begins in The Jungle Book with Baloo and King Louie, moves through a trio of princess stories — Ariel, Rapunzel and Merida in the Hong Kong version — and on to Aladdin, with the Genie leading "Friend Like Me," and The Princess and the Frog, where Tiana performs in a New Orleans setting. Between chapters, glimpses of further stories flash past as the pages turn. The search ends, as it has to, in Frozen: Anna and Elsa take the stage for "Let It Go," Olaf is restored to his own story, and Mickey returns to the library for a finale reprise of "Happily Ever After" that gathers the cast together.[3]