Prop-Making for Beauty and the Beast

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“The old cliché in theater is, if you’re nervous, pick up a prop, which will immediately take you outside of your mind.”
– Jesse Eisenberg –

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Do you enjoy the theater?

As much as I love movies, I've found that I would far rather spend an evening watching live theater than watching a movie. There is a certain magic about having real, live people performing before your eyes that a movie simply does not provide.

Almost eight years ago,

I played Maurice in a community theater production of Beauty and the Beast. You might say I was the poster boy for type-casting, because—essentially—I am Maurice. I am the crazy tinkerer/inventor. I love to build things.

And so, I was beyond delighted when a local Musical Theater director contacted me and asked me to build some specialty props for an upcoming production.

Theater Magic!
Image courtesy of Connor Limbocker and http://unsplash.com

Our local charter school enjoys an outstanding Musical Theater program.

The plays are performed entirely by students from fifth through eighth grade, but the overall production quality makes you think you're watching a Broadway show. The theater director goes out of her way, sparing no expense, to ensure that everything about each show is top drawer.

For example, during last year's performance of The Wizard of Oz, a specialty company (Flying by Foy) was hired to set up the necessary equipment and train parent volunteers to enable the actors to fly. Thus, Dorothy was actually blown away into the sky by the tornado, both bad and good witches were dramatically airborne, and the flying monkeys did.

You think you're watching a Broadway show.
Image courtesy of Denys Nevozhai and http://unsplash.com

The company is preparing to do Disney's Beauty and the Beast.

If you've seen any of the movies or theater productions, you may know that there are several specialty props that you can't simply buy off the shelf.

Maurice, beauty Belle's father, is an inventor. In the 2017 Disney film, he is seen in his workshop putting finishing touches on an animated Windmill Music Box. The blades rotate just as if they were the sails of a real Dutch windmill, moved by the wind.

Belle sees things of great import displayed in a Magic Mirror. She sees her father, Maurice, lost in the woods. Later, she takes the mirror with her and invokes a vision of the Beast himself, showing him to the mob.

Of pivotal significance in the story is an Enchanted Rose. Periodically, one or more petals fall from the rose. As the story goes, the Beast must "learn to love another and earn her love in return by the time the last petal falls."

My task is to build these three props.

The compensation for the job is modest, and the job itself is substantial. Nonetheless, I'm excited about it because the task is for a very good cause, the design and implementation will be fun for me, and I may reap other rewards in the future.

My goal, as always,

is the best possible outcome. I want these props to match or exceed anything ever seen before on Broadway. In fact, I hope that when I am done, I will be able to find other theater companies who may want to purchase or rent copies of these props from me.

I love the theater.
Image courtesy of Peter Lewicki and http://unsplash.com

In some upcoming articles,

I hope to tell you more about the design and implementation of these three set pieces. Stay tuned!

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~FIN~

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