‘Beauty and Beast’ takes on set, costume challenges
By Gene Robbins, Managing Editor
What goes around, comes around.
Seven years ago, students at Auten Road Intermediate School staged “Beauty and the Beast.”
Next week, some of those thespians — now seasoned Hillsborough High School veterans — will be back on stage March 8-16 with a more highly polished, glamorous and professional production of the Disney classic.
”It was the first show I’d ever done,” said Nihal Honwad, one of the featured actors. “Now it’s kind of weird closing my school years on the same note.”
Students are excited to present the show, which gives them a chance for comic expression and challenges of character. It’s a change of pace for the theater troupe, which has wowed audiences with “Titanic” and Phantom of the Opera” in the last two springs.
”Beauty and the Beast” is musical theater at its height with singing, dancing and life lessons. They’ll be characters to entrance the kiddies, a story line to touch the heart and songs and dancing to make you sit up and clap.
Beauty is Belle, a young woman in a provincial town. The Beast is really a young prince trapped in a spell placed by an enchantress. As time ticks down, if the Beast can learn to love and be loved, the curse will end, and he will be transformed to his former self.
The show will run Fridays and Saturdays at both 1 and 7 p.m. with a Sunday matinee March 10 at 1 p.m.
Tickets are $12. The box office will be open in the school lobby from 7-9 p.m. March 5-7. Or you can call 908-431-6600, ext. 2099, or click on www.HHSTheatre.org.
”Beauty and Beast” reaches for the heights Hillsborough audiences have come to expect.
The theater group doesn’t shy away from logistical challenges. Costumes will be among those used in New York productions, and some have to be shipped in wood crates, Mr. Solomon said.
Alex Luckenbaugh as Cogsworth the clock will have to measure his movements carefully; his costume will make him 42 inches wide, and he’ll be carrying 80 pounds of weight.
Amanda Cato as Mrs. Potts the teapot will have a diameter of 5 feet at the costume’s widest point. Lumiere the candelabra, staged by Nihal Honwad, will need to hold his arms (the spouts) up and at right angles for his entire stage time.
Costumes arrives this week so the students have less than two weeks of “being objects,” Mr. Solomon said.
” ‘Beauty and the Beast’ has been done by a lot of high schools,” he said. “We feel if we are going to do it and do it successfully, the way it should be done. We don’t want to skimp on the production values.”
A runway has been built out from the front of the stage (and around the orchestra pit) to the point where it eliminates first-row seating.
A full castle is being built on stage. The show tapped out the school’s lighting capability; the production had to rent more.
”It creates a bunch of new challenges for us,” Mr. Solomon said.
There is little backstage and wing space for scenery and actors waiting to take the stage. Scenery will be moved around in continuous action for the whole act. The school’s robotics team helped the group build platforms to help move pieces around the stage smoothly.
An ooh-and-aah moment will come when the beast is transformed into the prince, and he soars 12 feet in the air, Mr. Solomon said.
Those challenges are in addition to training the actors in their roles.
”My biggest challenge is that the characters are so memorable,” Mr. Solomon said. “Everybody’s seen the movie multiple times. Everyone knows who these characters are.”
The cast of 34 is large, but smaller than last year’s production of “Titanic.” All actors will be in gowns for a grand finale song and dance.
Mr. Solomon says it’s his strongest overall cast in his five years at Hillsborough.
Christine Micu is the musical director, and Mr. Solomon is director, choreographer and producer.
Mr. Solomon said he knew at the end of last year’s “Titanic” run that he would produce “Beauty and Beast” for 2013. He said he’s seen the Broadway show and three high school offerings six, seven years ago and reviewed archival film footage of the original Broadway play in the library of Lincoln Center.
He keeps every program of shows he attends, and he’ll get some of the creators of the Broadway special effects to come here, he said.
As an addition for the youngest in the audience, the actors will present a Character Tea with the characters after all of the matinee performances. It will be a formal tea with the characters, and young audience members will have photo opportunities with the characters. It’s $8 per child; adults are free.
The show is the Broadway version: music by Alan Menken, book by Linda Woolverton, lyrics by Howard Ashman and Tim Rice. It originally was directed by Robert Jess Roth and produced by Disney Theatrical Productions.

