Enchanted Island

Singer Jenny Shima joins Gabez and Mr Magicio to bring fairytale charm and magical melodies to the Club’s Family Christmas Show.

Growing up, Jenny Shima never imagined she’d be a Disney princess.

At age 4, she was all about the piano. “I was always practicing, always wanted to,” she recalls. “I thought that was what I was going to do with my life. I did all the competitions and was really focused on classical music.”

It was a natural path for the Indiana native. She grew up in a musical household, encouraged by her mother, who played piano and sang. But things really took off with the arrival of a new neighbor. “A Russian woman moved in three doors down, and my mom had gotten word that she was this spectacular piano teacher,” Shima recalls. “She went knocking on her door and said, ‘Please, would you teach my daughter?’ The woman said no, because she had such a long wait list. But she agreed to a quick assessment, after which she told my mom, ‘Okay. I’m going to take your kid because she’s got a lot of potential; but don’t tell anyone.’”

It turns out she was right. Shima would go on to become an accomplished pianist, taking part in many competitions along the way. Until one day she froze up.

“It was like some scene out of a movie,” she says. “I’m sure it wasn’t that dramatic, but I got up to the piano and I just couldn’t get started with the first note, even though I obviously knew the music. I’d never had anything like that happen before. I thought, ‘This is getting really intense. I can’t do this.’”

Shima pegs that moment to anxiety and the pressure to be perfect all the time. It was time to shift gears. Her mother suggested that she join the school choir, but she didn’t want to. “My mom made me and said I would have to do it for just a semester. And in that year, I just fell in love with it. That’s when I did my first musical.”

In theater, Shima found the creative freedom she was seeking. “There are no mistakes in theater. You just go with it and keep creating, and it’s a new show every night,” she explains. “That was so different to me from piano. I was hooked right away. I just was like, well, I think theater is really what I want to do. But if I hadn’t had all the piano training … it has been such a helpful thing throughout. If you do anything in regards to music—piano or even any instrument really—even if you don’t do it as an adult, it really helps you so much along the way.”

With a scholarship to the Hartford Conservatory, Shima planned to study musical theater after high school. But before she could start, she got a call from Walt Disney World and was offered a gig in Florida.

“I’ll do this one contract for a year and then I’ll go to college,” she recalls. “But that turned into seven.”

From Orlando, Shima went on to perform on cruise ships with Royal Caribbean before returning to the Disney family to help open the Hong Kong park in 2005. After a couple of years, she was asked to come to Tokyo Disneyland.

With Disney, Shima brought to life some of the world’s most beloved princesses—Cinderella, Belle and Ariel—in the parks’ fantastical stage shows.

She’ll play another leading lady at the Club this month when she takes to the stage in the New York Ballroom as Princess Christmas in Santa’s Elves’ Magical Music Christmas.

She’ll help another Club favorite, Mr Magicio, as they work to keep the elves in line and ensure that all the toys are ready in time for Santa’s big trip. Making that task a challenge are two particularly cheeky elves, played by the celebrated comedy pantomime duo Gabez.

Shima will be joined by her daughter Velvet Jean, who has been making a name for herself as a performer, including in last year’s Broadway Christmas Wonderland at Theatre Orb in Shibuya. Club kids will get their own parts as well as the performance unfolds and they join the celebration on stage.

“This is the place to fill up your Christmas spirit cup,” says Shima. “You see lots of pretty decorations and lights in Japan, and in that way it sort of feels like Christmas, but I always want an explosion of Christmas. I need classic Christmas songs, dancing and Santa and elves. We’re striving to give families a full-blown American Christmas experience.”