WATCH: What Secret Melody From the Frozen Film Is Woven Into Broadway’s New Song ‘True Love’?

Tony-nominated songwriters Robert Lopez and Kristen Anderson-Lopez uncover Easter eggs in the melodies of Broadway's Frozen.

You know the scene at the end of Disney’s Frozen (don’t worry ,no spoilers) when it seems like all might be lost for Princess Anna? In the movie, there is no song for that moment of desperation, but the Broadway adaptation gives her “True Love,” written by the Tony-nominated and Oscar-winning writing team Kristen Anderson-Lopez and Robert Lopez.

“We always wanted to write a song for [this slot] in the movie and, in fact, we had written a reprise in the movie of a song that doesn’t exist anymore,” says Anderson-Lopez.

She and her husband-writing partner sat Playbill down at the piano to talk about the genesis of the song—a tune that happens to be Anderson-Lopez’s favorite in the entire show.

The song is Anna’s moment of reflection. How did she get here? “The psychology behind expanding and deepening Frozen Broadway is we looked at families who got frozen into roles,” Anderson-Lopez explains. Here, Anna is “connecting that lonely little girl to that girl that bought into all those princess stories—that a man comes along and with one kiss it’s all solved and you’re never alone again.”

And as adult Anna thinks back on her younger self, it made sense to incorporate a melody from Anna's childhood—one of the original animated film’s most beloved—into the music for “True Love.” “She starts doing the math with this song, so it made sense for there to be echoes in the music of ‘Do You Wanna Build a Snowman?’” Watch the video above and see if you can hear it.

The duo digs into their process of composing harmonies (why is the song so much lower than all of Anna’s others?) and writing lyrics for the smash hit, now playing at the St. James Theatre on Broadway.

Want to know more about writing the music for Frozen on Broadway? Watch the video about Queen Elsa’s “Monster” below:



Frozen plays at Broadway’s St. James Theatre (246 W 44th Street between Seventh and Eighth Avenues) in an open-ended run.

