I've never had an opportunity to watch someone else direct the show that I had just done-so, as a thank you to my volunteering stage managers, I acquired tickets to see Beauty and the Beast in Chicago the Wednesday after our show closed.
Now, I kept in mind that we had done the Jr. version of the show, and that I would be comparing apples and oranges; they had an unlimited budget, I had 73 kids. They held auditions in every major city in the US, I had two days of "come one, come all". SO many differences...and yet, I found many similarities.
It was interesting to see the comparisons between character choices; I believe Rob Roth chose to highlight Belle's intelligence, while I focused on her stubbornness. He chose to highlight the obvious lack of social skills in Beast by portraying his many childlike tendencies and often instinctual urges, while I think our Beast was more nervous and a little awkward, but never really childlike.
Many aspects of the Chicago show chose to highlight the presentational style of their show; for the library, there was an arch, painted to look like LARGE open books, floating all over, the rose was very oversized, and the acting (for all characters) used large open gestures. Now, part of me wonders if this was done for the sheer size of the house, or if it really was to maintain the cartoonish characters.
It was really amazing to see that the idea for Belle to have a necklace that represented her family was used in both productions! While the Broadway show used a simple silver locket, we had an ornate rose necklace, but to see both using the same concept made me feel very proud :)
While I know that many similarities of our shows were because they were, in fact, the same plot line and characters, and that generally people don't change big musicals, it was still incredible to watch what someone else had done with the script. I know that there were tremendous differences, but it was still a good learning experience.
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