The Tale in Pictures!
What Beauty on stage … and lots of Beastly fun!!
photos by John Vecchiolla
Archive for April, 2008
CHANGEOVER..a must see!
Many have asked how we manage to go from one show to the next so quickly? Here is a view of the grueling and exhilirating changeover process!!
An Enchanted Evening!
A standing ovation rewarded the cast of Beauty And The Beast for a GREAT opening night performance! What FUN! What Romance! What intrigue! "The tale as old as time" stands up to a discerning modern day audience just fine!!
Some of the cast beaming with Opening Night excitement!
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(Mahalia,Jessica,Talana,Floryn & Samantha)
(Rena, Stacia, Marguerite)
Chips off the old block!!
Michael Herwitz, Alex Pasieka and Max Wright will alternate the role of CHIP in BEAUTY & THE BEAST at WBT!
Alex Pasieka is thrilled to be performing at the WBT. He is nine and in fourth grade at Columbus Elementary in Thornwood NY. His older sister, Lindsey, and father, Michael, have been involved with community theater for several years (Bedford, Yorktown, among others) and they got Alex interested in theater. Alex enjoys drawing, playing tennis, piano, saxaphone and is amazing at Guitar hero and is a pretty good juggler also ! He attended a summer theatre camp where he was in Cinderella, and he has been performing ever since! Previous roles include Winthrop in The Music Man and Gavroche in Les Miserables. He is the youngest of four children and has 3 dogs! With his first paycheck from this gig, Alex bought Dance Dance Revolution for his Wii system!
Michael Herwitz from Irvington, is thrilled to be back at WBT after appearing as Nathan in The Full Monty and as a newsboy in Gypsy. His interest in theatre developed from tagging along as sister, Zoe , was shuttled to singing lessons and rehearsals with youth theatre programs. He took to the stage himself at age 6 in a revue, Salute to Broadway at Irvington Town Hall Theatre, where an agent in the audience spotted him and he was on his way! On Broadway, He was in Chitty Chitty Bang Bang, and Dracula, The Musical. Regional audiences saw him in the Music Man, La Gioconda, Warsaw, Please Don’t Eat The Dasies, Les Miserables, and The Musical Adventures of Flat Stanley. Michael is very focused on theatre and enjoys reading scripts, as well as dabbling as assistant director for the fifth grade plays at school. He is a sixth grader at Irvington Middle School. A good student, he was recently honored as "student of the month".
Max Wright is really excited to be returning to WBT! After appearing in the spring of 2007 as Winthrop in The Music Man at Curtain Call Community Theater in Stamford, CT, Max made his WBT debut last summer as a newsboy in "Gypsy". Max is new to performing and feels it is a privilege to be able to work, once again, in the professional and friendly atmosphere of WBT. Max lives in Greenwich, CT with his twin sister and three older siblings. He attends the 6th grade at Rye Country Day School. Max is artistic, creative, with a unique sense of humor. He enjoys sketching, cartooning, comedy improv, and the humor of The Far Side and The New Yorker cartoons. He LOVES watching movies-his favorite being a toss-up between Star Wars, The Lord of the Rings and Space Balls! He enjoys the outdoors, nature and hiking and he took up squash this past year. Last year he was recognized by the State of CT for a poster he created on Citizenship. He got to attend an award ceremony in the State Capitol building in Hartford.
A Beastly Guy!
Not a beast, at all…nice guy, Joseph Mahowald had this to say………
I was born and raised in Huron, SD (my baby sitter was Sheryl Stoppelmoore — can anyone tell me what her married name is???). [answer: Sheryl Ladd]. I was the youngest of seven children and the only one of us to pursue performance as a career.
When I was a sophomore in high school I saw a production of "Man of La Mancha." It was the first time I had ever seen a stage show and it was…magic! I was in awe of the lead performer’s abilities to act and to sing. He absolutely captivated me. I decided then, that I was going to be a performer. I worked very hard at music and did all the plays I could until I got into college. When I got there the guy who had played "Quixote" three years earlier was a graduate student and I was mentored by him for the two years I spent at that University. I transferred to the College Conservatory of Music in Cincinnati after that and made the Dean’s List for nearly all the semesters, finally graduating Magna Cum Laude!
A few years ago, I was honored to do the Disney film "Mulan." It was such a thrill to do! The process of making an animated film is unlike anything I’ve ever been a part of before. We went to Sony Studios and, I must say, I was honored to be in a room with some of the most talented singers in the world! We went into a room (a really nice room with BIG TV’s) and watched the ’scratch’ animation of the scene for which we were about to make the audio. After that we went into the recording studio and put down the vocals. It was thrilling! The best part has come over the last few years when my own children saw the film and kept asking "where are you, papa? I don’t recognize you!" (more…)
What a Beauty!!
Rena Strober..who is the lovely Belle had this to share with us….
I grew up in 
I was always a big fan of Bernadette Peters, Bette Midler, I guess anyone with lots of big curly hair. I was also greatly influenced by the greats such as Danny Kaye, Gene Kelly and Ginger Rogers. Their grace, humor and ability to do it all made me work hard and live to tell love stories.
I’m a GIRL!!! Of course I watched every Disney movie! I always loved Cinderella and the fat mouse, Gus. I was never a fan of Snow White because of the dated ideas of women. I always loved An American Tale and of course, Beauty & The Beast. One of my first crushes was Robbie Benson who voiced the Beast. He was also in Ice Castles (more…)
Beast, Beauty & Company Prepare!
Great excitement was in the air at WBT Monday, as the company of Beauty & The Beast arrived for their first rehearsal! As the official snoop, I can, happily, say that they looked & sounded great! Musical Director, Angela Jamieson was extracting heavenly notes and Director, Richard Stafford had them artfully dancing and cavorting on stage! Opening night will surely be a magical & enchanted evening!
He knows what you’re thinking!
With a showman’s flair, a comedian’s wit, and capacities of a bona fide Mentalist, The Amazing Kreskin has, for over five decades, dramatized the unique facets of the human mind. 
Born in
THE BEAST IS COMING!!
The first version of Beauty and the Beast was written in 1740 by Madame Gabrielle de Villeneuve. Her audience was not children, but her court and salon friends who enjoyed sharing stories for entertainment. Scholars suppose that Villeneuve derived her story from traditional oral tales. In 1991, Walt Disney Feature Animation produced a musical animated film adaptation of Beauty And The Beast, with a screenplay by Linda Woolverton, and songs by Alan Menken & Howard Ashman. It won Oscars for Best Song and Best Original Score, and is the only animated film ever to be nominated for an Academy Award for Best Picture. Considered by many to be one of Disney’s finest films, “Beauty and the Beast” combined the Disney standards of strong story and music with some of the very best character animation and production ever seen in animated film.
When Disney CEO Michael Eisner saw Paige O’Hara (Belle) and Jerry Orbach (Lumiere) perform musical highlights from the film version of Beauty and the Beast as part of an awards presentation in New York City, he knew that audiences would embrace a live stage version of the film.
Academy Award-winning composer Alan Menken wrote the music for both the original film as well as new songs added to the stage production. Howard Ashman provided the lyrics for the film, and Tim Rice took over as lyricist of the Broadway production as a result of Ashman’s death of AIDS in 1991.
The show debuted on Broadway in 1994, three years after the release of the movie. It is the sixth longest running show in Broadway history, and played 5,464 performances between 1994 and 2007. The production holds the record of being the longest running production at both, the Palace Theatre, where it opened, and the Lunt-Fontanne Theatre, where it closed its Broadway run. The show received 9 TONY Award nominations including Best Musical.
