The auditorium in Hempstead Hall on the University of Hope-Texarkana’s Hope campus was nearly full Friday night for Garrett Memorial Christian School’s Drama Team’s performance of Disney’s Beauty and the Beast.
Audience members who had to scrounge for a parking space and walk several blocks received ample reward for their troubles, as the production, the latest in a series of Disney film adaptations for the stage by GMCS was a stunner in several respects, as a visual feast of costumes, set design and choreography, as an musical with grand orchestral music and singing of a high quality, with on-stage action and drama. The show’s director Donna Clark, who also teaches art at the school, earned the enthusiastic applause she received when she came out after the actors, singers and dancers took their bows.
The story you likely know, but Belle (played by a charming Abbi Brewer who is possessed of a soprano voice in the tradition of many Disney princesses) exchanges herself for her father Maurice (Richard Allen excelling in a portrayal of downheartedness and then frantic concern) as a prisoner in the vast castle of the Beast. Jimmy Daniels played the Beast with a depressed ennui in his voice that stirred sympathy despite his character’s playing out of the usual Disney villain trope. Logan Lauterbach portrays an overweening confidence in Gaston and the audience is all set for Gaston to be the one who springs Belle from her confinement.
Other standouts were Gracy Martin as Mrs. Potts, who sang and acted with expressiveness, Madison Faulkner as a Cogsworth who was able to do it all and stole many laughs.
Along the way we see so many lively production numbers and vocal performances as the story progresses in a way first-time viewers might be surprised by. The applause after these was frequent and sincere. When the show ended, the audience seemed reluctant to go back out into the lobby where a kind of reception took place as the young actors, some as young as five, could be greeted by parents and other family.
These shows are a fundraiser for GMCS and in terms of drawing ticket-buyers this one looked to have succeeded beyond all expectations, much like the show itself would do.
