Displaying items by tag: Levi Blaise Coleman

While I might have been born too late to experience Beatlemania or Woodstock or the Jazz Age in real time, I’ve been fortunate enough to live through plenty of moments that have already become milestones in our cultural consciousness. One of those was what’s now called “The Disney Renaissance.” I can still remember sitting in late 20th-century theaters and experiencing The Little Mermaid and Aladdin and The Lion King and being blown away by the songs and the characters and the worlds that that particular generation of Disney creatives imagined. Now that I think about it, those movies were perhaps the biggest inspiration for my own career in children’s books.

Maybe the best of those movies was Beauty and the Beast—it was bigger and more beautiful than about any other movie I can think of, animated or not. Its songs and its moments have been and are still referenced just about everywhere. And I still remember sitting there, experiencing all of it on the big screen.

So it was a real treat to experience that very same wonder all over again, all these decades later, on the stage of Broadway in Chicago’s Disney's Beauty and the Beast: The Musical at the Cadillac Palace Theatre. And it was just as thrilling to watch my youngest daughter and so many others who missed out on the original movie’s theatrical run experience it, too. The songs, the characters, and the whole world they build are right there, like it’s 1700s France (via 1990s America), for 21st-century children of all ages to hear and see and visit.

The talented cast of this touring production—directed and choreographed by Matt West—bring the songs and characters and world to life and to the stage. Of course we have the titular beauty and beast. Kyra Belle Johnson’s every bit the Belle the audience came to see—independent and animated and confident and tender. Fergie L. Philippe is a fine Beast, too—fearsome when he must be and princely when the story allows.

But, just like the film, it’s the populace of Belle and Beast’s world who make it so magical. It’s Danny Gardner’s Lumiere, the flashy and flirty candlestick. It’s Cameron Monroe Thomas’ giggling, wiggling Babette. It’s Kathy Voytko and Levi Blaise Coleman as sweet Mrs. Potts and her charming little Chip. It’s Stephen Mark Lukas grotesquely strong-jawed Gaston and Harry Francis’ slapstick sidekick, Lefou.

And it’s the impressive—in size and especially in talent—ensemble who really do the heavy lifting of the world building. Whether it’s Belle’s provincial village or the Beast’s fantastical castle, the cast become villagers and cups. They tap-dance and cancan and waltz. And they bring the show’s songs to life, making me appreciate them every bit as much as the first time I heard them, the bawdy barroom singalong “Gaston” wowing me, only to be immediately eclipsed by “Be Our Guest” (one of the few times in all of my theatergoing that a performance had to pause for a standing ovation during the show).

So, if like my daughter you didn’t get to experience the magic of Disney's Beauty and the Beast when it originally happened, you’ll get to experience it now. And, if like me, you want to feel the same way you did when you first heard Menken and Ashman’s classics brought to life by Disney’s renaissance men and women, check out Broadway in Chicago’s Disney's Beauty and the Beast at the Cadillac Palace Theatre, now through August 2.

*This review is also featured on https://www.theatreinchicago.com/!