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ONSTAGE

A REAL BEAUTY

It is every young girls dream to wear Belle’s iconic yellow dress, walk down the sweeping staircase and dance with the ‘Beast’ as Mrs Potts sings “Tale As Old As Time”… such is the draw of the Disney classic ‘Beauty and The Beast’ for societies and audiences alike. DarlingtonOS were fortunate enough to secure the

rights to produce this show but is was going to be the biggest and most extravagant production they were to face in their long history.

THE MUSICALEveryone knows the story, the tunes are part of Disney history, the characters are

larger than life. There is no other show quite like Beauty and The Beast. With music by Alan Menken (Aladdin, Little Shop of Horrors, Sister Act) and lyrics by Howard Ashman (Little Shop of Horrors, Aladdin) and Tim Rice (Joseph, Evita, The Lion King) the show has a musical pedigree which is difficult to beat. The story follows a prince, living in a shining castle, who is disturbed one winter’s night by an old beggar woman who comes to his castle and offers him a simple rose in return for shelter from the bitter cold. He is repulsed by her appearance and turns the old woman away. The old woman’s ugliness melts away to reveal a beautiful enchantress. Though the prince is apologetic when he sees her beauty, the enchantress turns the cruel, unfeeling prince into a hideous beast. To break the spell, the beast must learn to love another and earn their love in return before the last petal falls from the enchanted rose. If not, he will be doomed to remain a beast for all time.

CASTINGA Clock, a Candlestick, a Tea Pot, Feather Duster and a Wardrobe as well as a hideous

Beast…. What other show can ask so much of a company and of a casting committee? Add to that a chorus who must be versatile enough to play villagers, wolves, a whole mixture of cutlery, crockery and other household items and we knew the casting discussions would be long and interesting. As ever in Darlington, a very strong cast was put together who would soon gel very well and allow the magic of Disney to shine through early on in the rehearsal period.

REHEARSALSThe main issue when rehearsing Beauty & The Beast is not having the costumes. So

make-shift items were produced to allow the ‘enchanted’ characters to move in the way their character demanded. A series of Hula-Hoops tied together for Mrs Potts, a large TV Packaging box for Madam de la Grande Bouche (the Wardrobe), a baby’s push chair for Chip and two bits of wide plumbing pipe for Lumiere… and plenty of imagination!

Professional director Martyn Knight was at the helm for this production - his second time on the show having directed the Northern Amateur Premier in York just five months previously. With us for only 11 rehearsal sessions time was always going to be tight and everyone was going to have to work hard. Working with his resident assistant, Joanne

Darlington Operatic Society produced Disney’s Beauty & The Beast in November 2010. Julian Cound looks at just how they bought Disney magic to live theatre.

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ONSTAGE

Hand, the company enjoyed a tough couple of months working on the show almost every night.

COSTUMESI think it is fair to say that the success of any production of Beauty & The Beast

depends hugely on the quality of the costumes. Every child knows how all the enchanted characters should look and work and we were not going to disappoint. The budget for costumes alone was in the region of £12,000. In the end we used an amalgamation of costumes from three different sources (as well as creating and producing several of our own). We were fortunate enough to purchase a set of ‘enchanted’ costumes from a company in Jersey, we hired a full set of costumes from Molly Limpets (Sheffield) and also hired in the talents of Stephen Metcalfe and Alex Taylor primarily for the prosthetics and make-up for the beast but their talents and generosity soon meant we had a complete set of brand new costumes for Belle and the Beast including a stunning yellow gown for Belle - as well as over 100 wigs spread among the 34 members of the company.

Matthew McCabe was playing our Beast and he was needed at the theatre from 5.00pm to start the arduous two hour process of transforming him into the Beast. But the finished product was well worth the wait. Stephen Metcalfe had worked for Disney on Beauty & The Beast for four years and knew the make-up requirements inside-out.

SETWe used the beautiful, but huge, set from Scenic Projects. The scale of the

production meant we needed two full technical rehearsals to ensure the set, costumes, pyrotechnics, orchestra cast and crew knew exactly what was going on when. With a get-in starting at 9.00am Sunday morning we managed a rough technical run through on Sunday night, a full technical on Monday night, full Dress Rehearsal on Tuesday night and opened on Wednesday night for our ten night run.

SOUNDFor the last two productions, DarlingtonOS have hired in the services of sound

specialists AP Audio who specialize in professional pantomime productions. The team worked tirelessly to not only balance the sound for each individual character (we had 26 mics on stage in total) but also balanced each instrument in the 16 piece orchestra - with so much under-scoring in Beauty & The Beast it is essential to have the balance right between performers and orchestra.

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MARKETINGNo show can ever ‘sell itself’ although with the Disney name above this show it is

easier to grab people’s attention. Many marketing initiatives were arranged - filming the make-up and prosthetics process, Mrs Potts in full costume in the town centre, live local radio interviews, and a special ‘Fancy Dress’ opening night performance where children were encouraged to dress up as their favourite character in the show - the winner being presented with their prize on stage by Belle in front of a sell-out audience. With an estimated budget of over £110,000 for the production, our marketing team had to work on overtime to be able to re-coup that investment through ticket sales. It was imperative to get audiences to the theatre for the first three or four performances to ensure word of mouth (the best form of marketing) to sell tickets for the second week.

CONCLUSIONIt is still too early to report on the financial success of this production of Beauty & The

Beast but our audience figures are consistently growing - a positive sign in such an economic climate. With over 9000 seats to sell over eleven performances in a theatre that plays host to many west end touring shows - we had Joseph, Blood Brothers, The Rocky Horror Picture Show as well as the professional panto, Peter Pan with David Essex as direct competition, DarlingtonOS are proud to be up there among the best in live entertainment.

Working on huge productions such as Beauty & The Beast is a challenge but it ensures everyone on stage, back stage and front of house learns something new and for DarlingtonOS it has created a momentum on which we hope to build with our forthcoming productions of 42nd Street, The Producers and Titanic taking us into the Spring of 2012.

Belle & Beast (all costumes, wigs, prosthetics) Stevie Metcalfe, Maurice - costume Molly Limpets / wig Stevie Metcalfe, Cogsworth (wig and costume)- Stevie Metcalfe, Mrs Potts (wig and costume) - Stevie Metcalfe, Babette - costume - Molly Limpets / wig and headpiece – Stevie Metcalfe, Lumiere - costume Molly Limpets / wig and headpiece plus working hands - Stevie Metcalfe

ONSTAGE

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