Kristen Bell gave thousands of baseball fans a surprise they definitely weren’t expecting when she suddenly appeared in the stands at a Savannah Bananas game and transformed the stadium into something closer to a Broadway musical.
The surprise happened on August 15 at Coors Field in Denver, where the Savannah Bananas were facing the Indianapolis Clowns as part of their 2026 tour. Bell, 46, appeared among the spectators wearing a personalized Bananas jersey and leopard-print pants.
Then the music started.
Bell, who has voiced Princess Anna throughout Disney’s Frozen franchise, began performing “For the First Time in Forever,” the song she originally performed with Idina Menzel in the 2013 animated movie.
Instead of beginning from the field, Bell made her entrance directly through the stands, singing as she walked down the stadium steps and interacted with surprised fans along the way.
But Frozen was only the beginning.
As Bell’s portion of the song reached its conclusion, attention suddenly shifted toward the field, where Derek Klena was waiting.
Klena isn’t an ordinary Savannah Bananas pitcher. The 34-year-old is also an accomplished Broadway performer who earned a Tony Award nomination for Jagged Little Pill and has appeared in productions including Moulin Rouge!, Sunset Boulevard and Wicked.
That Broadway background immediately became part of the performance.
Klena launched into “Dancing Through Life” from Wicked while his Bananas teammates joined the production around him. The song was particularly fitting because Klena made his Broadway debut as Fiyero in Wicked in 2013.
Suddenly, fans were watching two completely different musical worlds collide: Princess Anna from Frozen was making her way toward a former Fiyero from Wicked in the middle of a baseball game.
And somehow, things became even more unexpected.
Bell eventually reached Klena on the field, and the performance transitioned once again—this time into “(I’ve Had) The Time of My Life” from Dirty Dancing.
The pair sang and danced together before ending the number with a recreation of the famous overhead lift associated with the 1987 movie. Klena lifted Bell into the air as the stadium erupted around them.
The Savannah Bananas later shared footage of the performance online, describing the combination as the mashup they never knew they needed.
Klena seemed equally thrilled about sharing the moment with Bell, praising her afterward as an exceptionally kind and talented performer. The performance also drew enthusiastic reactions from other celebrities online.
For anyone unfamiliar with the Savannah Bananas, the bizarre combination of baseball and Broadway actually fits their style perfectly.
The viral exhibition team plays its own fast-paced version of baseball known as Banana Ball, but elaborate entertainment is just as important to the experience. Players routinely perform choreographed dances, interact with spectators and turn ordinary moments during games into elaborate performances.
Klena’s presence on the team has made that connection to musical theater even stronger. He joined the Bananas after being recruited in December, bringing legitimate Broadway experience onto the baseball field.
Bell’s appearance also arrived at a particularly interesting moment in her own career.
Just one day earlier, she had appeared alongside Idina Menzel and Josh Gad at Disney’s D23 event, where they revealed new material from Frozen 3.
The upcoming sequel will once again feature Bell as Anna and is scheduled to arrive in theaters in November 2027. New footage shown during the event also teased another major development for Anna: her upcoming wedding to Kristoff.
That made her surprise baseball appearance feel almost like an unexpected extension of the Frozen celebrations.
One day Bell was officially promoting Anna’s next adventure. The next, she was walking through thousands of baseball fans singing one of Anna’s most recognizable songs before meeting a Broadway star on the field.
And by the end of it, a Savannah Bananas baseball game had somehow traveled from Frozen to Wicked and finally Dirty Dancing—all in one wonderfully chaotic performance nobody in the stadium saw coming.
