Aisha Jackson on the Broadway Musical Stage: An Afro-Fabulative Embodiment of Princess Anna in Frozen: The Broadway Musical

The 2018 original cast of Frozen: The Broadway Musical included Black performer Aisha Jackson as the alternate for the role of Anna. I argue that Jackson’s live performances as Anna, from 2018 to 2020, celebrate Black artistry and Black girlhood, enabling Black fan communities to see themselves mirrored in a Disney Princess, even one not originally written as Black. The significance of spotlighting Jackson’s embodiment of Princess Anna grows from the extended invisibilization of Blackness in youth narratives. Jackson’s performances as Anna allow for a Black main character and a Black artist/creator to be visibilized in the Frozen franchise. This article strives to centre and archive Black performance and contextualize Frozen: The Broadway Musical as an afro-fabulative affiliate of Black Broadway. I turn to Tavia Nyong’o’s articulations of afro-fabulation to read Black performance through Black performance scholarship, and I understand afro-fabulation’s insistent presencing of Blackness as an example of bringing the dark fantastic onto centre stage and into the spotlight.