2025 is shaping up to be a crucial year for Central Florida’s attraction industry in general, and live entertainment in particular. On the one hand, this summer’s opening of Universal’s Epic Universe and new shows at Walt Disney World will give new employment opportunities to scores of local performers. On the other, we’ve recently seen unfortunate reductions in the entertainment offerings at several area theme parks, from small cuts — such as the silencing of some interactive characters at Universal — to massive layoffs eliminating virtually all entertainment at Legoland, including the iconic water-skiing show.
Fortunately, there’s still at least one place where Central Florida entertainment employment is showing no signs of abating: the high seas. Unlike Orlando’s theme parks, which have reported flattening attendance figures for the past few quarters, the cruise industry has experienced a steadily building boom in bookings post-pandemic, with an ever-increasing number of record-setting new ships calling Florida home. All those passengers need to be entertained in between trips to the buffet, and the team of technicians, singers, dancers and musicians that it takes to staff any single vessel (much less an entire fleet) dwarfs the cast and crew of most theme park productions.
I was recently invited on a behind-the-scenes tour of the Tampa-area facility where Norwegian Cruise Line creates new entertainment for their 19 current ships, plus the eight more launching between this April (when Norwegian Aqua debuts out of Miami) and 2036. Located inside a couple of massive warehouses in an unassuming office park, NCL’s Creative Studio is the most impressive rehearsal facility I’ve ever visited, with the possible exception of Feld Entertainment’s circus headquarters in Palmetto.
To get a sense of the 114,000-square-foot complex’s immense scale: It has enough studio space to rehearse a dozen full-scale shows, as well as handle inventory for over 100 different shows across 33 ships (including NCL’s sister brands) around the globe. Different departments source and store about 70,000 different costume pieces per year, in addition to a staggering 20,000 pairs of shoes; if you’re looking for a collection of 30,000 rhinestones or a towering wall of 10,000 wigs, this is the place.
During my visit, I also got to see a brief segment of Elements: The World Expanded, a cirque-style acrobatics show, and was among the first outsiders to experience a substantial portion of Revolution: A Celebration of Prince. Both were created by Broadway choreographer/director Patricia Wilcox for the Aqua’s immersive main theater, which can transform from traditional theatrical seating into a dance club. The Prince tribute is the first shipboard show of its kind to be authorized by the late singer’s estate, and his family members have previewed the production during its 18-month development process.
Wilcox, who says she started her career in “MTV videos for $100 dancing on concrete at night,” has been working on the concept as a passion project for seven years. “It was an idea, and then it was an idea on paper, and then it was a videotape of me during COVID in the corner of my room,” she recalls, praising NCL and Prince’s estate for permitting the collaboration. “If you really love something and believe in it, you’re like, ‘I’m just going to keep moving forward one step at a time to get it over the goal.'”
“Our guests want three things out of their shows,” explains Bryan White, VP of Entertainment Production. “They want music that they recognize; they want artists that they know and love. They want visual spectacle. [And] they want narratives that are easy to follow. They do not want to sit in the theater for two hours and follow 15 characters and 17 different storylines.”
Accordingly, at about 50 minutes each, both of Aqua’s new shows are shorter than the licensed Broadway musicals found on some earlier NCL ships. However, they’re still far more substantial than the productions found on other cruise lines, which have shrunk with audiences’ attention spans. “We are not Carnival Cruise Line that is presenting an 18-minute revue of some songs that nobody has ever heard. We do quality.”
Another element that separates NCL’s entertainment is its diversity, with substantial proportions of casts comprised of people of color; Norwegian Viva’s Beetlejuice was among the first cruise productions to put Black actors in leading roles.
That’s quite intentional, according to White: “We really believe that there’s an opportunity in countries sometimes that haven’t had casting tours come through in years, where the talent is there and they’re just waiting,” he says, highlighting NCL’s casting trips to South Africa and South America. “It’s not just about meeting some quota or bringing in a bunch of different color faces. We really want to make sure that their perspectives are represented, that our guests are represented on that stage, and that they’re all having a great time.”
Finally, there’s good news for any Orlando entertainers who are tempted to jump aboard a career at sea.
“We love a theme park performer, because they perform a lot. Sometimes they’re outside; they know how to deliver in conditions that aren’t always perfect. We love that kind of work ethic and mentality, and I think that translates greatly to the kind of structure and everything that’s required of a crew member on board,” says Franklin Warfield, NCL’s senior manager of casting, who invites potential employees to attend open auditions. “We get a lot of Busch Gardens and Orlando folks that come over and audition for us. We go to Orlando, we go to Miami; we try to utilize as much of the local pool as we can, because there’s so much talent down here.”
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This article appears in Feb 12-18, 2025.