Hamilton’s Kaleigh Gorka making emotional return to Theatre Aquarius as Elsa in Frozen

‘One of the most anticipated productions’ in the theatre’s history, the holiday show has added five shows through Christmas.

Hamilton is giving a big warm hug to an upcoming run of Frozen, The Broadway Musical and that’s fitting, because this city and this musical are deeply intertwined. Hamiltonian Caissie Levy became the first to bring the animated Elsa to life when she originated the role on Broadway in 2018.

Fellow Hamiltonian Kaleigh Gorka was Elsa in the Canadian premiere of Frozen at Neptune Theatre in Halifax last year, and is now reprising that role as the Disney blockbuster takes the stage for Theatre Aquarius’s holiday show.

It’s an emotional journey for the adult version of a Hamilton kid who fell in love with musical theatre when she saw Hairspray in Toronto and then found her place in that world at Theatre Aquarius’s theatre school.

In her first turn as Elsa, Gorka worked under director Jeremy Webb, who also steers this production of Frozen.

“It's so beautiful to step back in and it's sort of like I'm suiting back up. So all of that work that I did, deep, deep, deep work I did the first time, is there waiting for me, and I get the chance to work with a new musical director.”

Theatre is a small circle and that is fully demonstrated in this nugget: That production of Hairspray that Gorka went to at eight years old that “lit the fire” of musical theatre for her had Bob Foster as its musical director. Foster is now the musical director on this production of Frozen, guiding Gorka as she tackles the demanding vocals required of Elsa.

Both Webb and Foster are helping her delve deeper into Elsa and bring more nuance to the role, Gorka says. She has the added benefit of knowing exactly what it takes to keep herself healthy and strong during a run in such a demanding role. That includes plenty of sleep and hydration, eating well, and meditation and journaling to create space between herself and what Elsa goes through on stage.

It won’t include much socializing with friends and family, though she is staying with her parents through rehearsals and the show’s run.

“I have to just be constantly investing in my vocal health, and I don't want to be having to, like, get things back or play catch up. So I opt out of socializing.”

Managing her health has become even more challenging now that Aquarius has just extended the run with five new shows from Dec. 23 to Dec. 28 due to strong ticket sales.

“We are thrilled to extend the run even before opening night,” says Mary Francis Moore, artistic director of Theatre Aquarius.

“The excitement has been incredible — Frozen is already shaping up to be one of the most anticipated productions in our theatre’s history.”

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The musical adds a dozen songs to the soundtrack of the 2013 movie, and Elsa, who is battling a superpower she can’t control, gets several more songs in the stage version, along with a more fleshed out character, says Gorka.

Her big solos, including the iconic “Let It Go,” often come after large ensemble numbers. That’s a challenge, especially when it comes to keeping the attention of young audience members.

“When I’m singing these mega songs, always at crucial moments in the story, I take that big energy, and I feel like I have to carry that on my back and up the ante and raise the stakes. And keep especially little kids interested in the story. Because if Elsa just comes out and sings pretty songs, I don't believe that that's going to be like quite enough to sustain the kids’ energy or attention.”

Gorka, whose credits also include Rocky Horror, Peter Pan, Footloose, Anne of Green Gables, Jersey Boys, Camelot, Dracula, Million Dollar Quartet, Comedy of Errors, and Rock of Ages, says her favourite thing on stage is hearing the kids in the audience.

“You can hear their little voices and their little laughs. I think it's always telling of how invested they are in the story,” she says.

Just in case you have been buried under a snow drift for the last 12 years, the movie was a sensation of memorable music, emotion, and humour, featuring sisterly love, and an epic journey to save the kingdom of Arendelle from the prospect of being an eternal frozen landscape. Kids and adults alike were enthralled, making Frozen the highest-grossing animated film at the time. (It’s now No. 5.)

Getting a second chance at such an iconic role is a gift, she says, and so is returning to her hometown to play it. But that also comes with deep emotion.

“This place means so much to me,” she says about Aquarius. “This is my first time back here in 15 years.” Gorka, who was raised in the east end before moving to the Hamilton Mountain later in elementary school, made her professional debut in High School Musical on the Hamilton stage in 2010.

She started in the junior school at Theatre Aquarius at about eight years old, taking weeks of singing, acting and dancing each summer. The senior program was seven weeks, including the experience of putting up a full-scale production. During Gorka’s time, she performed in the ensemble of Evita, and starred as Sandy in Grease, Ellen in Miss Saigon and Florence in Chess.

As Sandy, she was co-cast with Julia McLellan, who wowed in Waitress at Aquarius this spring, and also starred alongside Alyssa Curto who was Rizzo in Grease and is now also in Frozen as Queen Iduna.

The alumni from the Aquarius theatre school now working professionally in theatre have remained friends, says Gorka, who also taught in the program from 2010 to 2017.

“Being in rehearsals with my friend Alyssa is … as soon as we look at each other, it makes me emotional. We shared so much growing up here because it was such an intensive program. It drew in a lot of like-minded people who just loved it. I mean, what other teenager is willing to give up their whole summer to spend all of it in a dark theatre, training?”

During a recent trip to New York City, Gorka caught up with Cam Moncur, another Aquarius alumnus who is now the associate conductor for Death Becomes Her on Broadway.

“In my time he was a rehearsal pianist. And for me, he was such a great mentor and role model and really introduced me to musicals.”

Gorka remembers being in awe of older students in the program, including Jamie McRoberts, Nathan Carroll, Evan Smith, who have all gone on to careers in theatre.

“I watched them doing all these acting exercises and having this like sense of comfort and confidence. And I'd just never experienced anything like it. This program calls upon people who are really good at what they do and are serious about wanting to do it right.”

Tears well up when Gorka is asked about Lou Zamprogna, who led the theatre school for years.

“Coming home is prompting all of these thoughts about these teachers and mentors who were so invested in me and Lou absolutely was that. I view him like a grandfather now,” she says.

“And I think the thing that makes me emotional about it is that when you are a young person, having people believe in you is so crazy and crucial for your development. And the reality of a career in show business is it's really hard, and nobody out there in the big bad world, necessarily, will be as invested as your teachers when you were young. And they're the ones for me who planted and sowed the seeds of faith and belief that that I could really do this.”

She chose to go to Westmount for its self-paced learning and drama program and there, she learned from the late Cindy Rees who ran the school’s drama program.

“She was amazing. We would do a musical every two years and that was a credit,” she said. Typically, grade nines weren’t involved in the musicals because auditions happened the year before. But Gorka convinced her teacher to let her sing.

“So we got together in this small, little office, and I sang a song, I think, from Jekyll and Hyde: The Musical, acapella.” Gorka got the part of The Rose Seller in Oliver.

“It was intimidating, because I was with all of these older kids, but I just, I just was so obsessed with theatre that I just was getting into it in any way I could.”

Gorka says she owes everything to her parents, both born and raised Hamiltonians, who nurtured her love for theatre, even though it wasn’t the world they came from.

“I'm so lucky because they were the ones for me as a kid who found these programs to put me in. I think I just showed an aptitude for expression, in playing my little imaginary games and singing and dancing around the house. I was a theatrical, imaginative child.”

They drove her around to dance, acting and singing lessons, starting at age three, and picked her up late after performances when she was a teen. Their only requirement was that she get a university degree.

Though her passion was to be on stage, Gorka struggled when it came time to make a decision about an academic path. She worried that she would lose the love for performance if she required it to pay her bills. She contemplated studying to become a psychologist.

“So I just like pictured myself choosing a path where I pursued psychology and went to school and got a master's. And I imagined taking my kids to see Wicked The Musical, and sitting in that audience, watching. Looking back on my younger self, I'm like, wow, that was very mature visualization. I imagined myself watching the show and just cursing that I never tried. And that was like the clarification that I needed to at least try.”

So she enrolled in the acting program at Toronto Metropolitan University’s theatre school. It was a demanding program, with semesters devoted to Shakespeare, ancient Greek tragedy, and contemporary scene study.

“We really got a very well-rounded training in the world of acting through a classical acting framework.”

Early in her career, she wondered if she made the right decision to focus on acting, which gave her less time to devote to singing and dancing.

“I am so grateful now for my acting training. And I think stepping into a role like Elsa, I'm using everything I learned in theatre school. I think people certainly know Elsa for the demands vocally, and that that is absolutely true. It's very intense in that way, and that's a big part of who she is. I think so her magic is funnelled through her voice. And as an actor, I feel like I'm pulling from that Greek tragedy and Shakespearean training that I got in school. It's not a walk in the park, acting wise. It's very technical.”

Gorka’s career takes her all over and after living in Toronto, she decided to return to Hamilton. She bought a condo in the Piggott building downtown in 2017 and hunkered down there during the pandemic shutdowns. But she spent much of last year on the east coast, so she found a renter for her place.

She now lives in Stratford with her partner Josh Johnston, who is an actor and producer at the Stratford Festival.

Webb, who is artistic director at Neptune Theatre, is making his debut at Theatre Aquarius.

Others performing at Hamilton’s theatre for the first time are Adam Francis Proulx (Olaf), Naomi McIntyre (Young Elsa), Taurian Teelucksingh (Kristoff), David Andrew Reid (Bishop/Pabbie), and Constant Bernard (Oaken).

Among the creative team making working at Aquarius for the first time are Cassie Seaboyer, who is puppet designer and head of puppets; Cara Rebecca, fight and intimacy director; Helena Marriot, costume designer; and June Zinck, stage manager.

Other local connections in the 17-person cast of Frozen include Burlington-born Amanda de Freitas (Bulda), who has previously been on stage at Aquarius in Hairspray and A Hamilton Holiday, and Steven Gallagher, a Hamilton playwright and actor playing Weselton/King Agnarr. For Aquarius, he’s previously directed Fully Committed, written Pollyanna, and performed in The Gig, and The Sound of Music.

Also notable is Addison Wagman, who is returning to Aquarius’s holiday show as Young Anna after her performance as Randy in last year’s A Christmas Story.

NEED TO KNOW

Disney’s Frozen, The Broadway Musical
Theatre Aquarius
190 King William St.
Nov. 19 to Dec. 28
New shows added: Dec. 23, 1:30 p.m., Dec. 24, 1:30 p.m., Dec. 26, 6 p.m., Dec. 27, 1:30 p.m., and Dec. 28, 1:30 p.m.
Tickets here or by calling the box office at 905-522-7529