Beauty and the Beast
Beauty is only skin deep, right? Belle, Lumiere, and the Beast. Photo by Isaac James Creative. A fine production of the Disney musical by 3-D Theatricals plays Friday through Sunday in Redondo Beach Shame on me for initially misjudging the capabilities of 3-D Theatricals, the Anaheim-based company that’s been staging musicals at Fullerton’s Plummer Auditorium and, more recently, the Redondo Beach Performing Arts Center. I’ve now seen a handful of their shows and they really are quite good, and “Beauty and the Beast” is no exception. The Disney musical (music by Alan Menken, lyrics by Howard Ashman and Tim Rice, book by Linda Wolverton) originally opened in Los Angeles and thrust Susan Egan and Terrence Mann into the spotlight for their performance in the title roles: A musical just for kids this wasn’t. You know the fairy tale. A pretty maiden eventually finds compassion in her heart for the ugly and terrifying beast who’s keeping her under house-arrest in his castle. He’s under a spell for dismissing a sorceress disguised as a beggarwoman, and the only thing that will banish this curse is if he can find a woman who will agree to marry him, despite his outward appearance. The…
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