Beauty and The Beast

Last week the Carnegie Players presented Beauty and the Beast, a musical based on a Disney cartoon movie. The Players have been presenting plays since 1994, usually two a year, and this was one of their best productions. The costumes were unusual because the plot involves people who are turning into objects. There were costumes for players as knives, forks, plates, a clock, a chandelier, a tea pot (Mrs Potts was cast as Mrs Potts), a vanity, and a duster.

The sets were attractive and I liked the way that the stage crew shifted them between scenes in the village and the castle. The production had some talented singers not only in the major roles but in the chorus and dance scenes.

The crowd was respectable but not a sell-out as the Fendig Theater productions are, but then the Summer Theater audience has a lot of parents that attend all three shows. A cast member told me that the audiences reacted differently on each night--Friday night was louder and reacted more than the other two nights.

The cast was quite large with eleven named parts and 22 others in choruses and ensembles. Some of the cast came from distance, with one cast member living in Watseka, Illinois. There are a lot of people who enjoy performing and the Carnegie players give them the opportunity to be on stage.

There were a number of small girls in the audience who were Belle fans and they were delighted not only to see the play but also to have their pictures taken with Belle and other members of the cast

Overall, it was a high-quality community theater production that was very entertaining. (Even when it is not quite professional quality, community theater can be more entertaining than professional theater because the audience knows some of the cast.) Checking the Internet, I see that a non-cartoon version of the story will be released in March, 2017.

(The program said that the use of cameras was prohibited so I am not going to share any pictures. There were lots of pictures on Facebook of Fendig's Wizard of Oz but I have not seen any of Beauty and the Beast.)