[cptkarrot]

Just curious how other shows were able to perform the transformation from Beast to Prince at the end of the show? Am currently in a show in the early parts of rehearsal and want to figure the best and most effective way to do it.

Thanks!

Keith
"Beast"

[The Drama Queen]

I'm probably not the best person to explain this but..

For ours we just used a double for the death scene, then once he died, he did what we called "John's interpretive dance" with his arms and legs reaching up and then he lifted himself off the bench. Then with fog and flashy lights everywhere he ducked down at the same time the real prince shot up (thanks to flying wires) through a trap door & voila. Transformation. Alot simpler than it looked.

[Luc]

Wow! We just had dried ice fill the stage and have the Beast run off and a Prince run on -- it would have been a lot more effective if he had played the Prince, too, but we were just a community theatre and it took 45 minutes to take off his make-up after the show anyways.

[IwantheGoldenTicket]

Usually they have 2 different people, one for prince and one for the beast. Broadway is different. I know when we did it, the Beast sort of died/fell through the curtains to stage right. And the prince crawled back in. The guy who played the prince also had a small towns person part. Idk i hope that helped.

[broadwaybaby124]

Okay, this might sound a little complicated.
We had a person different from the one who played the beast the rest of the show play the beast during the fight scene with gaston. Our west wing was turned so that it was like a balcony and the person who played the prince the whole time was standing in a hidden compartment. After the beast is injured and gaston falls off the wall, the beast crawled back into the west wing. As the west wing turned, the prince took the spot of the beast. He was covered up with a blanket so that no one could see that he wasn't in beast costume. He was hooked up to a flying system and then proceeded to float and do flips, fly around while there was special effects going off.
I hope that didn't confuse you.

[jellyfish40142]

Ok here is a link to pictures of our transformation.

http://hsproweb.hsphoto.com/SC/index.cfm?fuseaction=ThumbnailPage&tpg=17&CFID=3571&CFTOKEN=B8AF7EF3-11E0-7AB2-C96B119931603F04&rand=13077F70-1429-1277-8FAD78D75D0793AF

Ok on the pictures, it takes u to page 17, but click on page 18 , and they are in the bottom. And they continue on page 19. But look at all the pages if you have time!

Basically the prince went up into the fly space ( on wires) during the mob song. Then when Belle was crying over the Beast, she clipped him in ( with the help of our technical director behind them) and then he flew up and the prince flew down and was unattached. But could never tell in the smoke. Look at the pictures to see it happen!

[Beagle On Stage]

Mine was so much simpler than all y'alls'. The Beast had a simplified version of his makeup for the final West Wing scene, which was done in trick lighting and staged so that no one would notice he wasn't completely made up but just had the prosthetics. Then once Belle said "I love you," the lights blacked out and the cyclorama started rapidly flashing all different colors as fog filled the stage floor below them. The effect was similar to a slow strobe light in that you could catch glimpses of Belle and the Beast, but couldn't track what they were doing. As Belle got up and backed away from him (creating a diversion so the quick views of them were drawn towards her since she had more motion), the Beast ripped off the prosthetics then rose, trancelike, and dropped his bulky cloak down the back where Gaston had fallen. The lights came back to normal and oh my God, it's no longer a Beast but a Prince. Then Lumiere, Mrs. Potts, and a now very foxy Cogsworth came in below them through a puff of smoke, and the transformation was complete.

For as simple as it was, it looked pretty cool. From out front it just seemed like he simply got up as the Beast and turned around as the Prince. Simplicity is key and, in my experience, gives a much more impressive effect than having him fly across the stage amid fireworks.

[BroadwayRedHead]

We haven't had our show yet, but we're about to have our production.

For our transformation, our Beast is going to be hooked up to wires and they will shoot him up into the air while he rips off his prosthetics and changes (he will have a cloak on I do believe) while there is smoke and different lighting.

From what I've seen of it, it looks really good.

[rytoast25]

i want to know how its done on broadway.

it still dazzles me. lol

[Tinker Rigger]

On B'way, it's done the right way: in the air on a flying rig.

Hall Associates Flying out of Chicago is an excellent company to help you achieve this effect. They're good people.

www.flyingfx.com

[Beagle On Stage]

If you ask me, that effect is a little much, and only for productions that need to be carried by that extra glitz in their special effects.

[Tinker Rigger]

Hello, did we not notice that the whole show is a spectacle? It's all about bigger-better-faster-more.

And in this day and age, you gotta be able to match the film guys move-for-move. (aka "CGI this!")

[Beagle On Stage]

That's not the most mature attitude. It's true that the original production is all spectacle (and of course it is - people seeing that one won't be satisfied by anything but). That doesn't mean it's the only way, and that certainly doesn't mean it's the best way (in this case, it's definitely not).

Actually, it's a blessing that with the chance for other companies to do their own unique productions of the show comes a kind of freedom from that "bam! bam! bam!" expectation. It's a chance to think outside the box: "Is there any other direction to approach this from that will be new and hasn't been done every night for the last 10 years?" If we're copying everything exactly the way it was done the first time, what's the point of mounting a new production of the show? We've all seen the Broadway production.

Spectacle is good, and something that any production of this show has to have a certain amount of. But there's such a thing as too much spectacle. A Beast that goes flying through the air as it transforms amid fireworks is over-the-top and really nothing more than the easy way out - "Just make it look like it did in the (animated!) movie" (and honestly not completely exciting when you've already seen two and a half hours of fireballs, candlestick hands, bodiless teacups and thousand-pound ballgowns).

[DaddyDiesel]