This was the second Disney show we did in as many years, more challenging musically than The Lion King but thanks to the incredible singing voice of Julie Kerner as Belle, it turned out to be a very good show. Howard Scoffield and friends did their usual phenomenal (and unfortunately, their final) job on the sets and backdrops, one bit of which I think is still hanging in the dining hall at camp. Michael Virga put forth a second strong featured performance as the Beast, and Scott Johnston, another very talented boy who only came to camp for one summer, played Gaston. Following in "Wacky Wally's" footsteps, boys' head counselor Marc Edelman had a cameo as Maurice, Belle's father, and drew some well-earned laughs.

Beauty and the Beast was actually easier to adapt than The Lion King because this time I had the Broadway soundtrack and score to work with, which includes some wonderful songs, including "Home" and "If I Can't Love Her," that aren't in the movie. Again I had to use narration to fill out the plot in some places, and kept dialogue to an absolute minimum, but I didn't have to write any new lyrics; I didn't really do that again until The Prince of Egypt in 2002.

This show presented some new challenges as far as transforming a cartoon fantasy world to a live stage, but we found solutions in most cases; the arts & crafts folks made torso-sized placards of the movie characters for Lumiere, Mrs. Potts and Cogsworth, which didn't look nearly as cheesy as one might think and actually worked pretty well, as well as dishes and silverware for the big "Be Our Guest" number. Michael's Beast costume included furry-looking sweats, the brown wig from "Hair" with foam bowls cut to look like horns (they looked great) and face paint; one thing I'll never forget is that the girls playing the narrators got the costume and face paint off of him to transform him into the Prince at the end in less than 30 seconds!

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