NEW YORK — Elementary school students made their Broadway debut thanks to a special Disney program that helps schools without theater programs.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Disney Musicals in Schools is giving students the chance to share and celebrate what they learned on a Broadway stage.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Ten New York City public elementary schools took the stage for the\u00a0Disney Musicals in Schools Student Share Celebration at\u00a0the New\u00a0Amsterdam Theater.<\/p>\n
Lisa\u00a0Mitchell, the\u00a0director of education and audience engagement at Disney Theatrical Group,\u00a0explained more about the program.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019ve\u00a0been doing Disney musicals in schools for 17 years,\u201d Mitchell said. \u201cWe started it here in New York City as our flagship\u00a0program, and we really began the program when we took a look around to see which schools were performing shows and which weren\u2019t.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
Mitchell said there was a massive access gap to theater education, which made them uniquely positioned to help fill the gap, which they did, one school at a time.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cThey\u2019ve never had the arts in the school, so this is their first time acting and seeing a whole production come to fruition,\u201d said Celeste Wilson, a teacher at PS 146 in the Bronx.<\/p>\n
Students learned choreography and words to all the songs.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey were excited,\u201d Wilson said. \u201cThey love \u2018Frozen.\u2019 They know the songs already.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
Mitchell said there are a team of artists who go into the schools\u00a0to\u00a0partner with teachers like\u00a0Wilson in training them how to\u00a0direct their first school show, or music direct, or choreograph\u00a0or stage manage.<\/p>\n
\u201cSo that by the end of the program, they have all those foundational skills, and they can keep going when we\u2019re not there,\u201d Mitchell said.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Wilson said students are excited to come to school, especially on Mondays,\u00a0Tuesdays,\u00a0and Thursdays when\u00a0they have\u00a0practice.\u00a0<\/p>\n
A lot of students have never been to Manhattan, Wilson said, so they were excited to come and perform.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cEven just coming on the bus today,\u00a0it\u2019s\u00a0just\u00a0really\u00a0heartwarming\u00a0to see them really\u00a0this happy,\u201d Wilson said.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Mitchell said theater is for everyone and Broadway is for everyone.<\/p>\n
\u201cJust putting the kids center stage to have that moment to realize that this is a space for them is a moving thing,\u201d Mitchell said.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Wilson said she\u2019s proud of her students.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u00a0just, you know, love seeing them happy\u00a0and just love seeing a smile on their face,\u201d Wilson said.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Copyright \u00a9 2026 WTVD-TV. All Rights Reserved.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"NEW YORK — Elementary school students made their Broadway debut thanks to a special Disney program that helps…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":268786,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[103766,9,24,55,54,56],"class_list":["post-269080","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-york-city","tag-103766","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-city","tag-new-york-city-headlines","tag-new-york-city-news","tag-ny"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/269080","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=269080"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/269080\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/268786"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=269080"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=269080"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=269080"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}