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Where: Orpheum Theater, 409 S. 16th St.
When: Tuesday through June 27. Showtimes: 7:30 p.m. Tuesday through Thursday; 8 p.m. Friday; 2 p.m. and 8 p.m. Saturday; and 2 p.m. and 7:30 p.m. Sunday
Tickets: $25 to $95
Information: 345-0606 or ticketomaha.com
How do you freshen a show that describes itself as a “tale as old as time, song as old as rhyme”?
Fifteen years after the stage musical “Beauty and the Beast” opened to a record run on Broadway, its original creative team got the chance to explore that question.
The result, a Broadway tour that began in February and continues into June 2011, arrives Tuesday at the Orpheum Theater for an eight-show run.
Director Robert Roth and writer Linda Wolverton threw open the castle doors to a kingdom of new ideas.
“They had 15 years to think of better ways to tell the story and explore these relationships,” said Justin Glaser, 34, the strapping 6-foot-5 actor who plays the beast. The team cut a couple of songs, changed some lines and wrote new scenes.
“It’s also a new set design, which allows more dancers on the stage for the big ensemble numbers,” he said.
Bellevue native Jen Bechter, 27, cast as Madame de la Grande Bouche, recalls a first read-through of the show that lasted two days instead of the usual two hours.
“We talked about everything, from details of characters’ backgrounds to what could be added to the set pieces. It was an amazing process the way they let us all help create.”
Bechter, who plays an opera star transformed into a wardrobe when a curse descends on the beast’s home, said her free-wheeling audition inspired the creators to “write this opera line that takes my notes up into the sky. They actually wrote a tiny little solo line in a song for me.”
Bechter, a self-described “military brat,” said her family moved from Bellevue when she was 3. She grew up primarily in Kansas, where she graduated from Wichita State.
Her father, Frank Bechter, a retired master sergeant, will be among many family and friends driving from the Wichita area to see her at the Orpheum. Her aunt, Miriam Bechter of Omaha, will also be there.
“People get so into the story,” Jen Bechter said, “how Gaston goes from great to evil, while the beast goes from evil to great. It takes you on a ride.”
Contact the writer:
444-1269, bob.fischbach@owh.com
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