Beauty and the Beast

Tale as old as time...song as old as rhyme...Beauty and the Beast...

is over.  

For those who may not have been aware, my new teaching job at West Point Jr. involves doing the school musical.  Lori Hayward, the choir director, chose Beauty and the Beast to be her last show, and I got to be her assistant.  Next year, she'll just be doing the music and I'll take over as director.

It's been a fun ride:  we had a fantastic cast, an amazing set, awesome costumes and props, and a great parent support group.  Lori did all of the big costumes including Belle's gold gown, Mrs. Potts, Cogsworth, and Madame (the Wardrobe).  I blocked all of the scenes involving fight choreography, the "Beauty and the Beast" dance, Gaston's song "Me," and various other scenes. I was also in charge of props and the Beast's costume. Here are some pics: 

This is one of the props I built that I'm the happiest with.  It's Maurice's invention...and it makes bubbles.  I built it out of a bunch of junk I bought at the DI for about $14...and then another $21 for the bubble machine. It worked every night.

This is our Beast.  I made the wig out of two separate 1980's rocker wigs.  I trimmed the top one and put it on top of the other and sewed them together.  I then added in pieces of other colors of hair.  I made the horns out of molding clay, wire, and paint.  They're stuck to the wig using the wire and hot glue.  The mask is made out of different pieces of a latex werewolf mask glued to a masquerade mask.  I added eyebrows and paint around the eyes.  He's also wearing a beard that I sewed some fangs to.  The hands were some monster hands that I painted and sewed fur to.  It looked pretty awesome on the stage.

This is our Belle looking at the Wardrobe.  All of the costumes Lori did were superb.
 

Now that it's all over, I have to get ready for the next one that we'll be putting on at the end of February:  Dr. Omar Hansen's The Horrible Monster of Danky Swamp.