Gretchen Trowbridge has been touring as a figure skater for 18 years and knows a thing or two about what it takes to not just be a successful skater but what it takes to live on the road.
Gretchen got her first job as a skater with Disney on Ice when she was just 18 and worked with them briefly before heading to college at the University of Minnesota. There, she studied architecture and Japanese, and also worked in Housing and Residential Life helping students adjust to life at college.
This well-rounded approach reflected her approach to skating growing up, when she not just studied skating but studied music and theatre as well.
This background has helped Gretchen not just apply herself to skating with Disney on Ice, but allows her to help others adjust to life on the road.
Gretchen remembers what it was like going off on tour while still in her teens. Unlike skaters new to the touring circuit today, Gretchen didn't have a cell phone or email to help her keep in touch with her family. Luckily, today's new skaters have it easier when it comes to keeping in touch. Nevertheless, skaters new to touring with Disney on Ice sometimes feel lost when it comes to things like budgeting, doing laundry, and cooking on the road. When it comes to recognizing younger skaters who need help and guidance
Gretchen can draw on her own experience of being out her own for the first time and working at her University to help them adjust - and hopefully stick with the show for the long haul.
Gretchen tries to share her love of traveling with the younger skaters as well. For Gretchen, skating with Disney on Ice is not just a chance to do what she loves for a living but is also a way to see the world and experience new cultures. Gretchen loves showing newer skaters the sights in new towns and countries while on tour and also challenges herself to find more obscure places to visit when she finds herself in places she has already been and to embrace opportunities to travel to new places as well.
Gretchen also uses her varied background to help her excel in her roles at Disney on Ice. Currently she is playing Dory in Disney on Ice presents Follow Your Heart. Her childhood experiences with skating, music, and theater also made her realize the importance of teamwork and she looks out for all of the other skaters while she is on the ice -- just as she knows they are looking out for her.
Her experience of applying herself in whatever she does also helps her be the best Dory she can be. Since Gretchen plays a fish on ice skates, she needs to learn how to always move gracefully, even when she is standing still, and she needed to learn all of the idiosyncrasies that make Dory who she is from the way she stands (and swims!) to her smile.
One thing Gretchen loves about being in this new Disney on Ice show is not just the opportunity to travel to some of her favorite places, but that she gets to play Dory so soon after Dory's new movie came out showcasing more of her personality. What's more, she gets to share the ice with some of Disney's newer characters that aren't in Disney parks yet, like Riley and all five of her emotions from the movie Inside
Out.
Gretchen thinks that Disney on Ice Presents Follow Your Heart is a great chance to explore a sense of fun and adventure for all kinds of families!