Finding Nemo - The Musical
A First Hand Event Report
by Carol Vandiver

The transformation of Animal Kingdom’s Theater In The Wild is now complete. What used to be the home of Tarzan is now home to Nemo and his undersea friends.

Disney’s Animal Kingdom is offering “Preview” shows several times a day and on November 9th, I was lucky enough to view one of them.

The stage is set with large “bubbles” on both sides of it. While we were waiting for the show to begin, you could see Nemo swimming around from bubble to bubble on either side of the stage.

We were told that these showings were actually “dress rehearsals” and that the show could stop at any time for things to be added or changed. Our show ran smoothly and we had no interruptions. The theater is now totally enclosed but otherwise, hasn’t changed a lot. The seating is the same as it was during the Tarzan show.

Although stage center and towards the top seems to be the best viewing location, we were in the handicap area, seated in the very back row on the far left. We had no trouble at all seeing the show, so I don’t think there is really a “bad” seat in the theater.

This show uses a combination of puppetry, animated backdrops and acrobats to tell the story of Merlin, Nemo, Dory and all of their friends. The puppets are supported or carried in various ways by the performers who were dressed in bright costumes.

In the beginning, I found the fact that you could actually SEE the performers carrying the puppets around, very distracting. After 5 minutes or so I found myself really enjoying the effect, seeing the performers as an “extension” of the puppet, rather than a distraction.

Some of the puppets, one of which was Nemo, were carried by hand, mounted on long “poles”. This gave them the ability to move them around to look like they were swimming. Some of the undersea plant life was actually strapped to the performer and their movements gave life to the plants.

The silverfish were there, giving directions to the EAC, etc. These puppets looked like silver, fish shaped mitts (like oven mitts). The performers had them on their hands and ran around creating each “sign” perfectly.

My personal favorite was Mr. Ray. The performer rode a very large, fancy bicycle that I loved! Mr. Ray himself was HUGE. Sometimes I wondered how they even carried some of the puppets around on the stage.

I didn’t actually time the length of the show but I’d say it was between 35 and 40 minutes long. I was surprised that it was so long but I enjoyed every minute of it. We didn’t have any small children in our group and I wondered if it would be too long for them to sit still and watch. Hopefully all of the colorful puppets and outstanding music will keep them entertained.

If you’d like to try to catch one of the previews, the tentative schedule is:

• Nov 15th - 10:00am - 12:45pm - 3:00pm
• Nov 16th - 11:15am - 12:45pm - 3:00pm
• Nov 17th - 11:15am - 12:45pm - 3:00pm
• Nov 18th - 11:15am - 12:45pm - 3:00pm
• Nov 19th - 25th - 10:00am - 11:20am - 12:45pm - 3:00pm

Please note that this schedule may change. The day that I was there, two shows were scheduled but only one performance was shown. After November 25th, they will continue to run 4 shows per day. In January 2007 with the official opening, they will move to 5 shows per day.

If you are an annual passholder, you can go to the Disney website and get guaranteed seating for the first show of the day, December 1-10, 2006. You can find the information here:

Nemo The Musical – Annual Passholder Sneak Peek.

If you’d like a quick video peek of the show you can find two short video clips here:

Nemo The Musical – Video Clips. Look in the Animal Kingdom section.

Updated November 15, 2006