Cirque du Soleil’s Drawn to Life Opens in Disney World (And You Won’t BELIEVE Who Was There)

While the Disney Parks are filled with shows, characters, and rides, there is also A LOT to do outside of the parks, including quite a few things that you might now know about!

Cirque du Soleil at Disney Springs

There are dinner shows at select Disney World hotels (though these are currently suspended), an entire shopping and dining district that is FREE to visit, and more. And, after a 19-month delay, there’s now a brand NEW show that you can only see if you’re visiting Disney World!

Cirque du Soleil has had a long partnership with Disney, with the former show, La Nouba, running for almost a full two decades in Disney Springs before closing back in 2017. Now Cirque du Soleil is BACK in Disney Springs with a NEW show, Drawn to Life, which debuts TODAY, November 18th, 2021!

©Disney

If you’re not familiar with it, the new show has 10 different acrobatic performances that follow the story of a twelve-year-old girl who needs to finish an animation project left by her Disney animator father after his death.

©Cirque du Soleil

To do this, she goes on her own animation-inspired quest (guided by a pencil!) filled with Disney childhood memories, imagination, and dreaming.

©Disney

The show has an international cast of 62 artists who perform some seriously AMAZING feats.

©Cirque du Soleil

During the show, you’ll get to see acts featuring some amazing performers on unicycles…

©Cirque du Soleil

…a giant hand(!)…

©Cirque du Soleil

…acrobatics performed in front of character designs (see Pinocchio behind?)…

©Cirque du Soleil

…juggling…

©Cirque du Soleil

…and MUCH, much more!

©Cirque du Soleil

Drawn to Life is a Cirque du Soleil show that is exclusive to Disney World, so you’ll have to head to Disney Springs to watch it!  Tickets are on sale now and the show takes place most Tuesday through Saturdays evenings.

©Cirque du Soleil

But let’s get to the exciting part: OPENING NIGHT itself!

It feels great to be back at the theatre!

When you enter the lobby, there’s a bar area where you can purchase alcoholic and nonalcoholic beverages.

Bar menu

The beverages with alcohol are generally served in this cute Drawn to Life cup!

We love themed cups!

There’s also a gift shop area to browse before you enter the theater.

Gift shop

The shop is filled with unique souvenirs, including glittery backpacks

A fun backpack!

colorful water bottles

Water bottles

…and tons of apparel!

You can replace your entire wardrobe with shirts from ‘Drawn to Life’

There are shirts and hats for the entire family!

More apparel!

You can even purchase a set of juggling balls so you can do some training at home after seeing some of the amazing performers in the show.

Train to be a future Cirque du Soleil performer!

There’s also a variety of items themed after the Pencil characters in the show!

Drawn to Life gift shop

And, because it’s Disney World, you can also purchase a Cirque du Soleil-themed light up spinner.

To add to your light up spinner collection

Before we could decide which souvenirs we wanted to take home with us, it was time to head into the theater!

Drawn to Life pre-show

The stage sits empty for a short while…

An empty stage (but not for very much longer!)

…until performers start to appear!

Drawn to Life

During today’s opening night, there was little pre-show that took place before the performance officially began!

Drawn to Life pre-show

We were happy we arrived at our seats early so we could enjoy the show before the actual show!

Pre-show

There was lots to see.

Pre-show

In true Cirque du Soleil fashion, audience members were invited to participate.

Pre-show

Then, John Stamos appeared before the performance began to give a curtain speech!

It’s John Stamos!

You can check out his speech here:

 

The CEO of Cirque du Soleil, Daniel Lamarre, and the President of Walt Disney World, Jeff Vahle, also appeared before the performance to deliver brief remarks!

Daniel Lamarre and Jeff Vahle

Then it was time for the lights to turn down low and for the performance to begin! To learn more about the show (and the merchandise you can get themed to the show) check out our links below:

We’ll continue to keep an eye out for more new and returning Disney entertainment, so be sure to stay tuned to DFB for more!

Go Behind the Scenes of the NEW Cirque du Soleil Show HERE!

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Have you ever seen a Cirque du Soleil show? Let us know in the comments!

Disclosure: In nearly all circumstances, Disney Food Blog writers and photographers pay full price for their own travel, hotel, food, beverage, and event tickets. We do this because it’s important to us as journalists to ensure not only that we give you unbiased opinions, but also that you can trust us to do so since we’re paying our own way. On rare occasions, when we are invited by a company to attend a preview as media, and when we choose to accept that invitation, we will always make you, our readers, aware of that situation. Today, we were invited by Disney World to attend their media preview of Cirque du Soleil’s ‘Drawn to Life.’ Note that when we attend events as media we are 1) Not required to review that event/food on any of our channels, and 2) Not required to review that event/food favorably. You can always count on DFB to give you a 100% unbiased and honest review of any event that we attend, food that we eat, or beverage that we drink. You can see more in our Disclosure Policy. Thank you for reading. — AJ

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