Disney’s The Little Mermaid

If you’d told me that Disney’s “The Little Mermaid” would form the basis for one of the most innovative musical productions of the season…Thanks to a truly breathtaking and counterintuitively designed set from Jeffrey D. Kmiec and a really, really good idea from director Amber Mak, that is exactly the situation this holiday season at the historic, gussied-up-for-holidays Paramount Theatre in Aurora, where Disney’s most problematic Broadway musical has been transformed into a spectacle not unlike sticking your head into an aquarium and spending a couple of hours happily blowing bubbles with your delighted kids.

With its outstanding cast, its superb orchestra, its endlessly imaginative direction and choreography by Amber Mak, its wondrous flights and deep dives of fancy — including puppetry, aerial (and Ariel) ballets, eye-popping sets by the masterful Jeffrey D. Kmiec, seductive costumes by Theresa Ham, and a color palette that runs the gamut from deep sea to high sky hues — the show is just the latest evidence of why, in just over five years, Paramount’s Broadway Series has not only been able to transform Aurora into a city where the performing arts rule, but one in which a theater trumps a casino as a major economic engine.