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Shouts
of Bravo! Greet Performances of Beauty and the Beast Additional
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The CCES winter musical has always been a special highlight of the school's arts program. But this year's staging of a witty, tuneful, full-length musical by the school's own Molly Hoffman was surely a tour de force. The audience, already on its feet during the actors' curtain calls, erupted into shouts of Bravo! when the composer stepped on stage to accept her bouquet of roses after the performances.
And what performances they were! Full of melody, wit, extravagant costumes, and the well-trained voices (thanks, again, Molly!) of our students, the winter musical performed on February 21, 22, and 23 was a completely updated version of the Hoffman-Standridge Beauty and the Beast, first performed by the Children's Theatre at the Peace Center Concert Hall in 1995. Originally conceived by Ric Standridge, founding artistic director of the South Carolina Children's Theatre, this Beauty and the Beast featured a powerful score and witty dialogue to rival the popular Broadway show. Ms. Hoffman composed all the orchestration and songs, both music and lyrics, without having listened to the Disney version. (One reviewer at the time pronounced them "tres witty"; Music Theatre International wrote that the show is "full of lovely tunes.") For the current CCES production she has updated the production with the addition of several brand-new songs and a full-length score for a ten-piece orchestra.
Speaking about the musical's 1995 debut, Ms. Hoffman remembered, "The first song I wrote was 'I Dare to Love,' a tender waltz that shows the beast's human heart. It is preceded by an angry recitative expressing his frustration at being entrapped in the flesh of a beast. I knew then that I could write this show, and the rest began to pour out of me. I was writing the songs almost in sync with the rehearsal schedule. I wrote the scene music on the spot in rehearsal, so that the incidental music and scene changes were timed with the dialogue." In the interim since the original production and the performance by the Greenville Symphony of one of the show's songs at its Holiday at Peace concert in 1995, Ms. Hoffman has rewritten the script, adding and deleting scenes, and creating new characters. New songs include "Once Upon a Time," "After the Ball" and "It Was Almost." But it has been the task of arranging the orchestration that has kept Ms. Hoffman at work for hundreds of hours with the help of Sibelius, a computerized notational system. Now that the production is in rehearsal, "it has been worth the long nights and weekends," she says.
The cast and crew numbered more than sixty participants. Senior Justin Ouimette loaned his many talents to the role of the Beast, and junior Elizabeth Finley brought grace and a lovely soprano voice to the role of La Belle. Junior Kevin Cobb supported the leads comically as Soleil, a candelabra with a decidedly fwench accent. State and regional fencing champion J.R. Anderson, a junior, played multiple parts as Fauteuil (the chair) and Jacque, and also doubles for the Beast, executing an exciting sword fight for the show's climax. His opponent in the sword fight is the egomaniac Fontaine, played with swagger by sophomore Anthony Bucci. Senior Mary Kirk Goeldner sings and dances as the irrepressible flirt La Vase (pronounced vahz, of course), and senior Laura Olzerowicz is Eloise, the scheming tavern owner. Senior Alex Smith, junior Elizabeth Morrow, sophomore John Holman, and fifth-grader John Flanagan complete La Belle's family.
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