After all, the musical of "Beauty" has played to Utah audiences for the past two Christmases in elaborately costumed local productions at Pioneer Theatre Company, and last summer in a spectacle-filled show at southern Utah's Tuacahn Amphitheatre.
To create your own theater-in-the-round staging, if you're Hale Centre Theatre, you'll borrow the technology to build precise water fountains that create elaborate light effects, then divide your movable stage to create the illusion of a cake and an up-and-down staircase.
You'll deliver the familiar magic, too, such as the elaborate objet d'art costumes that turn servants into dancing "knickknacks and whatnots" in the show's big-ticket "Be Our Guest" musical number. "I'm having the time of my life," says longtime local choreographer Marilyn May Montgomery, about staging costume-driven dances on a very small stage. "It's a trick to have costumes as big as boxes."
Let's break down this "Beauty":
Plot: "Beauty" tells the story of Belle, who, in the tradition of the spunky female icons of fairy tales and young-adult lit, is a standout in her provincial French burg because she actually likes to read books and avoids the doltish town hero, Gaston. "We shall be the perfect pair," he intones in his egotistical marriage proposal, "rather like my thighs." Instead, Belle falls under the spell of a love-phobic prince-turned-Beast and his staff of trapped household servants.
What sounds promising about this production? The show's 14-jet fountains - similar to the dancing waters at The Gateway shopping center - create precise, colorful dashes of light, using technology a Connecticut company devised for the Broadway show "Bombay Dreams," says Andrew Barrus, HCT's technical director and set designer. The beauty of "Beauty's" illusions is that audiences won't see the source of the water or where the water goes: a 3-foot hole that's painted to fade into the stage floor.
Desert rats should know that no water will be lost as it is recycled and reused.
Why this effect for this show: Hale producers chose to emphasize a realistic tone as the show begins, with a narrator sitting near a well with a fountain and reading the fairy tale to a flock of goats. The water tricks are intended to make the fountain seem to come alive, launching a fantastical story about the transformative power of love.
Super-special effect: Even on a Broadway-size budget, it's hard to stage the transformation that seals the romance at the end of "Beauty." To solve that problem on Hale's comparatively minuscule $50,000 production budget, Barrus and crew created a cylinder of mist to surround the Beast, which functions like a scrim to show projections of the character's past and future. "The crucial thing with these water effects isn't the water, it's the lighting," Barrus says.
Getting there: Your best bet for good tickets are the September shows. "Beauty" is heavily sold to season ticket holders in August, but call the box office to see if more summer shows have been added.
Be our guest
"Beauty and the Beast" opens Tuesday and plays nightly (except Sundays) through Sept. 30 at Hale Centre Theatre, 3333 S. Decker Lake Drive, West Valley City. Curtain is at 7:30 p.m., with 12:30 and 4 p.m. matinees on Saturdays and other selected days in September. Children under 5 are not permitted, except at special performances at 9 a.m. on Aug. 26 and Sept. 9 and 16. Tickets are $20 to $23, $14 to $15 children, and are available by calling 801-984-9000 or visiting http://www.halecentretheatre.org.
