Weather 
COSTA MESA, Calif. () — After months of rehearsing, some young performers got a big surprise Wednesday in Orange County.
Mickey and Minnie Mouse joined dozens of elementary students on stage for Segerstrom Center for the Arts‘ Student Share Celebration.
The event was the culmination of a 17-week program that provides schools with free training and resources to stage their favorite Disney musicals.
“Many, many months before the students take this stage, our teams are looking for schools that demonstrate a deep care for their community,” said Lisa Morabito Petersen, vice president of education and engagement at the Center.
“Our teaching artists go out into the community, and we teach the administrators and the school teams how to create a sustainable musical theater program.”
Wednesday’s show brought hundreds of parents and loved ones to Costa Mesa to see students perform selections from their school’s chosen musical adaptations.
WATCH: Disney Musicals in Schools program shapes lives of young performers
“I think once they started to hear their voices being echoed around from the microphones and the big space they were in, it was just a really exciting moment,” said Victoria Cope, director of Nelson Elementary’s production of “Jungle Book KIDS.”
Westmont Elementary School students were the first to arrive Wednesday from Anaheim, wearing looks straight out of Agrabah for a magical showcase from “Aladdin KIDS.”
Two campuses, Northwood and Lampson, brought schools of fish to the professional concert hall for their selections from “Finding Nemo KIDS.”
And players from Nelson Elementary came from Tustin to share “The Bare Necessities” from “The Jungle Book KIDS.”
One by one, these young performers filed into the concert hall to take advantage of some last-minute rehearsal time, and to peer across the massive theater.
As Disney VoluntEARS helped welcome crowds in the lobby, students met their host for the evening, Jennifer Kumiyama, who gained recognition in 2002 as the first performer in a wheelchair in Disney’s “Aladdin: A Musical Spectacular.”
Then, another surprise, as Mickey and Minnie Mouse made way onto the stage to wild cheers and applause.
“Our kids and our staff have really been working since August to put this all together,” Northwood Principal Kelly Duncan said. “To give them the opportunity to perform in a venue like this is so amazing.”
Astonishing, too, is what happens after the curtain closes.
Now in their 12th season of Disney Musicals in Schools, the Center said it has served 45 elementary schools across 17 SoCal school districts.
“They learn teamwork, they learn collaboration, they learn discipline,” CEO and President Casey Reitz said. “They learn what it means to build something, and what it means to collaborate.”
“These principals report back to us that the reading levels are jumping two and three levels because of the work that they’re doing,” Morabito Petersen added. “Kids are sleeping with their scripts.”
To learn more, visit DisneyMusicalsinSchools.com.
Disney is the parent company of 7 Los Angeles.
SEE ALSO: Disney taps Sherman Oaks school for new program connecting students with magic of musical theater
Putting on a school play takes a lot of work, but Disney Musicals in Schools has launched a new initiative giving teachers free resources and the confidence to stage their own Disney productions.
© 2026 Television,
