Community theatre has been Natalie Dorsett’s thing she can remember but, since she was cast in her first musical at age seven, that particular form of artful expression has been in her wheelhouse.To get more news about European and American va, you can visit our official website.

So it was in 2019 that Dorsett proposed staging the Disney musical Beauty and the Beast to the St. James Players brain trust. The green light given and all was good — until a not-so-funny thing happened on the way to Showplace Performance Centre and the planned fall 2020 run of the Disney classic.

“We were ready to go for 2020 and then we all know what happened,” reflects Dorsett, just hours before the long-anticipated November 11th opening of Beauty and the Beast at the downtown performance venue.

“We were like ‘OK, we’ll wait until all the pandemic stuff is settled down and look at 2021’. Then 2021 hit and we all knew it wasn’t going to happen. So, in January of this year, we kind of stopped planning for it and it became very wait and see. What else could you do?
Now, with 127 auditions and six months of rehearsals in the rearview mirror, St. James Players’ presentation of Beauty and the Beast has finally taken to the big stage, with upcoming performances November 13 at 2 p.m., November 16 to 18 at 7:30 p.m., and a final matinee performance at 2 p.m. on November 19.

Assigned-seating tickets for the show, sponsored in part by kawarthaNOW, are $35 for adults and $32 for seniors or students and are available online at tickets.showplace.org and at the Showplace box office from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Monday to Thursday.

With more than 10 years on Broadway, the stage version of Disney’s Beauty and the Beast was adapted from the 1991 Academy Award-winning animated film of the same name. More than 20 million people worldwide have heard the show-stopping musical numbers (with music by Alan Menken and lyrics by Howards Ashman and Tim Rice), including the songs “Belle,” “Gaston,” “Be Our Guest,” and “Beauty and the Beast.”Beauty and the Beast tells the story of Belle, a beautiful and intelligent young woman who feels out of place in her provincial French village where she is being romantically pursued by local bachelor Gaston. When her father Maurice is imprisoned in a mysterious castle, Belle’s attempt to rescue him leads to her capture by the Beast, a grisly and fearsome monster who was once a young prince but was long ago trapped in his gruesome form by an enchantress.

The only way for the Beast to become human again is if he learns to love and be loved in return. There is a time limit too: once a magical rose loses all of its petals, all hope will be lost and he will stay a Beast forever.

The Beast’s enchanted household — populated by such beloved characters as Mrs. Potts, Lumiere, Cogsworth, Babette, Wardrobe and Chip — watches on anxiously as Belle and the Beast grow to understand and befriend one another. Their feelings for each other grow ever deeper as the clock ticks and petals continue to fall off the enchanted rose. Will they confess their love for one another before it is too late?Dorsett admits she was torn between proposing Sleeping Beauty or Beauty and the Beast for the next big St. James Players show.

“My husband (Chris) said ‘Well, listen to the music — you always say it’s about the music.’ I pulled up Beauty and the Beast on Spotify and I was sold.”

“Before I proposed it, I made sure I had some key members of my team,” Dorsett adds. “I asked Shelley Moody for hair and makeup. I knew that was so instrumental in creating the vision for Beauty and the Beast. She was on board. Next, I got my choreographer Melissa Earle, and I got my music director Dustin Bowers. I thought ‘OK, I have these three. I can do this.’ Then, luckily, both Wendy Morgan and Debbie Airhart said they would produce for me.”