Fear not, this won’t be “Mickey’s Magical Party Continues… Big Time!”, but an extended run for the centrepiece show itself — It’s Party Time… with Mickey and Friends.

Of course, we could guess from the start that the vast new Central Plaza Stage wouldn’t be ripped out come the previously scheduled end date of 7th March 2009, but we may not have guessed the follow-up show would be… exactly the same. In name, at least.

The casting call above (PDF) was posted on the Entertainment section of the resort’s dedicated Casting site, requesting dancers for the show with full time contracts beginning end of October 2009. The surprise, however, is the end date: end of August 2010!

And, it’s absolutely correct. Current work-in-progress plans do have next year’s Central Plaza Stage show bearing the same name, but the content is still to be finalised. The crucial detail, in fact, is that current plans have the show only as a single performance — a finale to the day — in the 2010 season, rather than the four afternoon performances seen this year.

It makes sense — the several performances of “It’s Party Time” have brought nowhere near the anticipation or audience retention of Candleabration in previous years. The daytime timeslot means guests are often just passing by to another land, heading to Main Street for lunch. Many miss the start or end of the show, or don’t bother staying to see the middle. Unlike true theatre shows, which visitors must choose to watch, queue for, and take a seat for, there doesn’t appear to be much affinity to this seemingly continuous daytime event on the hub.

However, if It’s Party Time… with Mickey and Friends is to move to the end of the day, as a big finale to whatever next year’s “theme year” may be, will games like the Tigger bounce and Baloo scratch really be adequate? Perhaps it will be the same show only in name and staging after all — the “Mickey and Friends” tag is certainly open enough for a new middle section to be easily slotted in where the party games currently sit.

Don’t stop practising your “Mickey Dance” just yet, then. Plus, with Minnie’s Party Train set to return in yet another new guise and Disney’s Stars ‘n’ Cars surely not going anywhere soon, the party may be ending March 2009 but its legacy — such as it is — will certainly live on.

Picture: Photos Magiques; Casting call spot thanks to DLP.info.