Get to Know the International Broadway Stars Performing Your Favorite Disney Princess Songs in Disney Princess – The Concert! This week, the cast of Disney Princess (The Concert)—Krysta Rodriguez, Aisha Jackson, Anneliese Van Der Pol, and Music Director Benjamin Rauhala—met with the press and the online community to address questions about their upcoming performance.

Q: How different is this Broadway project compared to your previous Broadway project and your roles before?

Anneliese: For me, I’m used to television, so the hours are different. It’s like 9–5 on television, and with theater, you’re usually working at night. It’s totally different if you’re on a tour; usually on Broadway, it’s the same stage every night. On tour, we’re adjusting to people and the language because we speak a little bit of whatever country or city we’re in.

Aisha: It’s actually different because in a Broadway house, you can’t always see the audience, but in some of these houses, you get to actually see everyone in their costumes, and we can see their faces light up as we sing your favorite song, so it’s always fun to be able to have an intimate personal experience with our audience memories.

Krysta: And most of the time we’re on Broadway before me to show we’re playing a character all the way through, but as we get the unique opportunity to be ourselves, we get to bring who we are. We need to share stories with you about our time on Broadway and our connection to all these characters, and then we get to just have a moderate with the other princesses on the stage, which is unique and fun!

Benjamin: And also, unlike the other shows with one princess to star and now getting to have four, that’s a whole new thing having these incredible women interacting with each other and finding that each other and singing together live for everybody.

Q: If you were to relate to any of the Disney princesses in terms of realness, which Disney Princess would you relate to, and what real trait would you relate to them?

Aisha: I would say “Anna.” She’s goofy, and she loves her sister, and I have a little sister that I love and adore.

Anneliese: honestly, I guess for me it’s “Rapunzel.” She’s a lot like a character I played on television; she’s sort of glass half full and whimsical and airheady, and she really finds joy in life even being trapped in that tower, in that small room, and becomes an artist and educated.

Krysta: I think I’m going to say Snow White because she has a lot of friends that helped her out, and she has a specific group that she found that helped her get through some tough times since she leans on them. You know a great group, and who doesn’t like having seven men living with you?

Benjamin: I will go with “Flounder” because his best friend was the best singer under the sea and the best singer in the city, and that was really, really fun, and that’s what I do too.

Q: If you will describe your life right now, what would be the perfect Disney song for you right now?

Aisha: For me, “for the first time,” we are in the Philippines. We were so excited to be here, and it’s been a dream of mine to travel the world while doing what I love. So for the first time here in the Philippines, doing what I love.

Benjamin: You know it’s a song from Ms. Lea Salonga; we’re in a whole new world right now since it’s our first time here. We’ve been traveling, and every new city is like “unbelievable sights, indescribable feelings.”

Anneliese: “7 a.m., the usual morning lineup.” Start with the questions and get the interviews done! I would say, “Love is an open door,” loving our friends and our group and the dozen doors that have been opening that we couldn’t imagine.

Krysta: I would say “Colors of the Wind.” We’ve traveled so much, meeting so many people of different cultures, races, and religions, and just going through the flow and going through the wind where the plane would take us.

Q: What would you consider the most challenging part of your career, and how did you overcome it?

Aisha: Benjie gifted me a new song this time, “The Little Mermaid.” It’s a little challenging, harder than it seems, and it has a lot of words, so that’s my challenge to nail that and bring it to the fans to adore in a loving way.

Anneliese: I think the most challenging is just being away from our family and our loved ones, of course, and then musically on stage; it’s like I have to sing part of the world, and I will sing that song after Halle Bailey sings it. Everyone hears this music so much, and so to make it a new, interesting, or different refresh is a challenge, so yeah, that’s my challenge.

Krysta: I’m saying you know we will have fun in the future. And maybe you get one or maybe two great songs or something like nine amazing songs. Did you do them all justice, and sometimes you wanted to do a great job to learn them all and have a unique path for each character that you’re doing so? You know I knew some classics, but some of the newer songs I am not familiar with, and then taking a new song really well and learning the perfect harmony is another difficult thing to do, but we have ample time with rehearsals and come up prepared and do our best.

Benjamin: I would say that every day in theater is a challenge, making sure the show is excellent and that we are set up every day. We have an incredible crew traveling with us as well as contributing to the local growth of each town, making sure that we are committed to making magic for everybody.

Q: What can your Filipino fans expect from the concert? Is there a special song or performance that they can expect?

Benjamin: What do our Filipino fans expect? Well, they can expect that we’re going to sing the songs of all 13 Disney princesses and the two frozen queens. There’s going to be five incredible Broadway stars up there, including four Powerhouse princesses and our guest friends, and we’re going to be up there and sing all the songs you love.

Anneliese: Please expect to have a nostalgic feeling and that you have a good time and enjoy yourself. You’ll have a fun show at a time when maybe we really need it in a serious time around the world.

Krysta: We’ll sort of present so many songs in a new way. We’ll have a screen behind us where we’ll be playing the animations, so you’ll have a good familiar and new mix together. And I think the surprise or special thing that we might have is that you’re going to be thrilled with all the songs; they’re all your favorites. We throw in a few that are outside the princess box from different films, and then there’s a little magic that occurs at the end of the show, and if you sing loud enough along with us, the magic might hum. We have a very magical music director with us, and the power of our voices together will make the magic happen.

Q: My question is: What do you think is the importance of Disney Princesses in our world today that you hope people will learn through the concert?

Aisha: I think Disney Princesses really teach us to believe in ourselves and our dreams; they remind us that all dreams are possible, and they teach us about having courage, being ourselves, and not being afraid of something that might seem hard, so I hope that people are encouraged to keep going after what they want.

Anneliese: If I can remember what the question is, it’s that we’re talking about princesses, not princess, and it’s a female-forward show; it’s about feminism in a large way and the power of being a hero through courage, kindness, empathy, and love. It’s not using your sword when one uses your sword, and you know different ways.

Krysta: I think that a lot of the Princesses there  challenges they don’t come from external sources they actually come from the people in their lives who limit them or are they worried about what they think other people are going to think are the world is going to think or and I think so much of what they learn almost all of them learn through not worrying so much about what everybody will think of you and what the world’s gonna say are what people limit the limitations that people place on you and I think that’s a lesson of a lot of women and young girls and young boys that everybody needs to learn and like what that is just being talked about formally it’s normalized in all these movies and so I think that lesson II continue to learn and I hope people will learn the way forward from this.

Q: Given that the princesses and two queens have struggles, they also have victories. If you have one princess you want to duet with, what particular song from your repertoire would you sing along with them?

Aisha: I want to sing “Let it Go” with Elsa.

Anneliese: I want to sing “Show yourself” with Evan Rachel Wood and “Badder with Amy Adams and Maya Rudolph. Fabulous villains duet.

Krysta: I’d like to say, “I see the light.”

Benjamin: Being on the piano is my whole job. I play duets with princesses, and I’m pretty lucky, but I do hope that Ms. Lea Salonga will sing with us one day, and that would be a real dream.

Q: So I’d like to ask about the dresses that you’re going to wear and the jewelry that they’re going to wear.

Aisha: You can expect to see a lot of sparkle.

Anneliese: supposed to be confident, and trust me, they’re beautiful. They’re so smartly related that I’m telling you it’s sparkle and jewelry. I don’t actually have it, and it’s not like real, because I can’t support that I’m sounding like Cinderella.

Q: Is there ever a song from the Disney repertoire that, the first time you heard it, moved you so much? Do you always follow yourself in tears? You said I needed a break. I need to take a moment and feel it in.

Aisha: For me, it’s the color of the wind.”

Krysta: For me, it’s “Can you feel my love tonight?”

Q: Do you have pre-show rituals that you would like to share with us?

Aisha: Yeah, we like to warm up the voices in our bodies to make sure that we’re ready to go for our audience. I’d like to give a little dance in the mirror. She says, Shake off my nerves and remind myself to have a good time.

Anneliese: our rituals to be together and gossip

Krysta: Yeah, we like to try the little snacks that we get, so that’s my ritual: eating.

Benjamin: I stand up on stage about 5 minutes before the show, and I think about where I am that day. I really think about the people that are there, and I’m trying to make sure that I’m ready to make special for them.

DISNEY PRINCESS – The Concert. A series of concerts will be slated in MANILA on November 18 & 19, 3PM & 8PM at the Samsung Performing Arts Theater, CEBU on November 22, 8PM at the Waterfront Hotel Cebu City and DAVAO on November 21, 8PM at the SMX Convention Center Davao. Presented by Disney Concerts and Wilbros Live.

Don’t miss to Book your tickets now! Manila: TicketWorld.com.ph Cebu, Davao: SMTickets.com #DisneyPrincess #Ariel #Aurora #Belle #Cinderella #Elsa #Jasmine #Merida #Moana #Mulan #Pocahontas #Rapunzel #Raya #SnowWhite #Tiana #WilbrosLive