One of my favorite local finds of the last 2 years is the charming and wonderful Empress Theatre in Magna. I had never even been to Magna before seeing my first show there and it’s a lovely little town and the Empress has been there since 1916! Recently they had to cancel 2 of their shows because of grant cuts so if you can support them please do. They deserve it.

The latest show at the Empress is Disney’s musical take on Freaky Friday. This is the 4th version of the body swapping mother/daughter story from Disney and it’s a show that makes a lot of interesting choices. I wish I could have gone with someone who has a teenage daughter because I’d love to hear their take. The Disney Channel has done a filmed version of this story and you can hear my thoughts on that and the other 3 versions on Hallmarkies Podcast with my friend Marisa.

It was quite brilliant of the Empress to have Freaky Friday in May to coincide with Mother’s Day and I was happy to see the seats mostly full. They always do such a great job there I hope the word continues to spread. Fortunately Freaky Friday is no exception to this excellent trend. The biggest strength to the show is the performances of Beck Skeen as Ellie (daughter) and Jen Kroff as Katherine (Mom). They are fantastic at embodying a teen in a mom body and a mom in a teen body- no small task but they are up for the challenge.

At first it was a little stressful because Kroff was wearing too big of shoes and I swear I thought she was going to turn her ankle about 100 times but she finally took them off and threw them to the side. There were a few mic problems but other than that their performances are allowed to shine and I bought them as mother/daughter.

The rest of the cast is also excellent with Eli Carillo standing out as Ellie’s boyfriend Adam and Parker Jones as young Fletcher (during “Parents Lie” he truly looks devastated as the song goes on.) I also enjoyed how director Beth Bruner used the entire stage including a platform area to tell the story and a scene with a wedding cake toppling over was very convincingly done (I gasped!) (props manager Jennie Jonsson did an excellent job with that cake)

To be honest, as a show Freaky Friday is a work I’m a bit torn on. It makes very interesting choices with the characters and story. There are 2 songs in particular that I’m not sure if they are brilliant or just plain weird:

First, there is a song called “Biology” which is sung by mom in teenager body which is very strange when you think it is sung by an adult.

But the really strange song comes in “Parents Lie” sung by teenager in mom body to her little brother. On one hand I like the subversiveness of being frank with children but it goes too far and I don’t think teen Ellie would be so mean to her brother- saying hugs are a lie is a lie and I don’t think she would be that bitter and again mean to her little brother. It feels weird to have an adult sing that to a child.

Obviously the Empress has no choice but to perform these songs as written but I just think it makes for a strange and uneven experience of a show. But it’s one that I would be interested to talk about with teens/moms to see how they feel.

If you’ve seen Freaky Friday on stage or the DCOM I’d love to hear what you think. In the meantime, it’s playing at the Empress until May 27th so get out there and see it! You can purchase tickets here.

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