A tale as old as time is getting a fresh new life in Hollywood.<\/p>\n
Disney\u2019s Beauty and the Beast has returned to the stage at the Hollywood Pantages Theatre<\/a> as part of the first Disney-produced North American tour of the musical in more than 25 years. And while the production delivers plenty of spectacle \u2014 enormous sets, dazzling costumes and some truly show-stopping musical numbers \u2014 it\u2019s the familiar characters and songs that still give the story its heart.<\/p>\n Among them is Mrs. Potts, played by Christina Rose Hall, who joined me on Entertain Me with Heather Brooker to talk about stepping into one of Disney\u2019s most beloved roles.<\/p>\n For Hall, that also means getting to perform one of the most recognizable songs in Disney history: \u201cBeauty and the Beast.\u201d<\/p>\n The Alan Menken and Howard Ashman ballad won the Academy Award for Best Original Song after appearing in Disney\u2019s 1991 animated film and became a signature moment when Angela Lansbury\u2019s Mrs. Potts sang it as Belle and the Beast danced together in the castle ballroom.<\/p>\n Hall now gets to create that moment for a new generation of theatergoers \u2014 while putting her own stamp on a character audiences already know and love.<\/p>\n A massive new production of a Broadway favorite<\/p>\n This Beauty and the Beast isn’t a stripped-down revival.<\/p>\n Directed and choreographed by Matt West, the touring production brings the scale of the enchanted castle to the stage with sets by Stanley A. Meyer, lighting by Natasha Katz and costumes by Ann Hould-Ward, who won the Tony Award for her work on the original Broadway production.<\/p>\n The show also features the songs generations grew up with, including \u201cBe Our Guest,\u201d \u201cGaston\u201d and the title song, along with numbers Alan Menken and Tim Rice wrote specifically for the stage musical, including \u201cIf I Can\u2019t Love Her\u201d and \u201cA Change in Me.\u201d<\/p>\n Kyra Belle Johnson stars as Belle opposite Fergie L. Philippe as the Beast. Stephen Mark Lukas plays Gaston, Danny Gardner is Lumiere, Javier Ignacio plays Cogsworth, Harry Francis is Le Fou, Aaron Kaburick plays Maurice and Cameron Monroe Thomas is Babette.<\/p>\n Hall said being part of a production with this kind of history \u2014 and an audience that often knows every song before the curtain even goes up \u2014 makes the experience particularly special.<\/p>\n As I told her during our conversation, these are songs many of us have had \u201cstuck in our heads since 1991.\u201d And hearing them performed live with a full company and orchestra is a very different experience from watching the animated movie at home.<\/p>\n More than 30 years of \u2018Beauty and the Beast\u2019<\/p>\n Disney\u2019s Beauty and the Beast premiered on Broadway in 1994, becoming Disney\u2019s first Broadway musical. It earned nine Tony Award nominations, winning for Best Costume Design, and went on to become one of Broadway\u2019s longest-running productions.<\/p>\n More than three decades later, the story has become something families can experience across generations. Adults who grew up watching Belle, the Beast, Lumiere and Mrs. Potts are now bringing their own children to see them on stage.<\/p>\n And despite all the spectacle surrounding her, Mrs. Potts still gets one of the show’s simplest and most memorable jobs: reminding us that sometimes the biggest transformation comes from learning to see someone differently.<\/p>\n Hall brings warmth, humor and her own personality to the enchanted teapot while still delivering the moment audiences are waiting for when those familiar opening notes of \u201cBeauty and the Beast\u201d begin.<\/p>\n Disney\u2019s Beauty and the Beast plays the Hollywood Pantages Theatre through Sept. 6. The tour then heads to Segerstrom Center for the Arts in Orange County, where performances run Sept. 22 through Oct. 11.<\/p>\n Listen to my full conversation with Christina Rose Hall on Entertain Me with Heather Brooker<\/a>,<\/a> available on the iHeartRadio app and wherever you get your podcasts.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A tale as old as time is getting a fresh new life in Hollywood. Disney\u2019s Beauty and the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":433086,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[172035,172033,100424,48,52,51,47,50,49,172034],"class_list":["post-433085","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-los-angeles","tag-christina-rose-hall","tag-disneys-beauty-and-the-beast","tag-kfi-entertainment","tag-la","tag-la-headlines","tag-la-news","tag-los-angeles","tag-los-angeles-headlines","tag-los-angeles-news","tag-the-hollywood-pantages-theatre"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/433085","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=433085"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/433085\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/433086"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=433085"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=433085"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=433085"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}