Beauty & the Beast Disney Memories

With today being the anniversary, I'm wondering who else saw the glorious original production before it moved and was shrunken down? I remember going in skeptical, but being overjoyed and thrilled by what the Imagineers pulled off, along w/ Susan Egan and the rest of the company.

I wonder - do the Imagineers still help with stage effects or is that now all Disney Theatrical?

My all time favorite show. I saw it twice at the Lunt and then last year at Paper Mill. I'm still hopeful we get the revival that Tom Schumacher mentioned a few months ago. Post COVID-19 Broadway might be good timing for it.

I think the shows are pretty much run by Disney Theatricals now. The How Does The Show Go On books are good for background info on development and such. There are 3 versions now.

It's not the same but Disney posted part of the Disney Dream version of the show last week. It takes after the 2017 live action film: https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=3&v=ctEpq9Opnyk&feature=emb_logo

I saw this show on my first NYC trip in 1995 after I graduated from high school. My mother took me to see SUNSET BOULEVARD w/ Glenn Close, BEAUTY & THE BEAST, MISS SAIGON, the Hal Prince SHOWBOAT, and LES MIS (which we had seen before on tour). It was a magical trip and I can remember BEAUTY fondly.

God I loved that "Be Our Guest" number with the candles coming up out of the stage and the champagne bottles sparkling at the end. The audience went nuts for at least two minutes at the end of that number. The magic of the "Transformation" of the beast into a prince at the end of the show is still quite vivid in my memory and I still have no idea how they pulled it off. You can always count on Disney for some true magic and they sure did with the original production of this show.

Though I was only 18 at the time, this trip to NYC and Broadway was just the first of many I've taken in the subsequent 25 years, so I was hooked on the theater 100% after that trip, and a big part of that was due to this show. I don't think we can underestimate how many young people (like I was at the time) became devotees of theater because of this show. And not just for mega-musicals, but all kinds of theater - I love it all!

Thank you, BEAUTY AND THE BEAST and Disney!

It doesn't. It's pretty much the 2017 movie on stage

I never saw it in NYC but went to a matinee in London at the massive Dominion Theatre. I was surrounded by a bunch of little kids and a few adults. I thought this is going to be miserable, but wow was I wrong. The children, if I recall all dressed up in sport coats and cute dresses, some may have been in school uniforms, were so well behaved. No fidgeting, no pleas to use the restroom repeatedly, no talking. They were completely caught up in the performance and applauded. Just perfect little patrons.

I also recall there being tiny red binoculars on the seatbacks. You put in a coin and I think you got it back when you clicked the binoculars back in the holder. I didn’t recall seeing those in other theaters on other trips to London.

I loved both the film (both versions) and musical.

^^^I got a great giggle out of that! Tarzan and Little Mermaid were just...blech. Tarzan isn't stage musical material mostly because of how the music functions in the film. You can't expect unseen third person POV songs to work in a musical. LM could have worked with more creative thought, but fell very flat. To this day, BntB and LK are still Disney's best stage musicals in every aspect.

I saw BntB in 2005 so it was already at the Lunt Fontanne, and I keep hearing it was very much scaled down...now I was on a MAJOR case of jet lag at the time, so I don't remember much of what I saw, but what I DO remember was pretty friggin magical anyway....I miss it so dearly, and is a rare revival I'm glad is happening, especially since you'd never think Disney would do a revival. All I hope is that they won't base it off the 2017 film. I don't mind a rewrite or two, such as changing the "illiterate Beast" plot point (Now that I'm older and wiser, I realize that was kind of ridiculous) to both Belle and Beast being very well read therefore have a commonality to body over. It's really the only thing the 2017 film got right in terms of how you get your tsundere romantic leads to realize they're a match.