Beauty and the Beast at Van Wezel Journal5 Feb 9, 2011

Beauty and the Beast at the Van Wezel

At 7:00 p.m., Tuesday Feb 8, 2011, I took my two roommates to see Beauty and the Beast the Broadway traveling show at the Van Wezel. The Van Wezel is a building that you can’t miss for two reasons. One is because it’s a big purple building (and how many purple buildings do you come across) and that it’s the home of most Broadway shows, music performances and a location where people can make speeches. It is a big performance building that is open to all kinds of theater arts, performances, musical or not. Many people love coming to the theater, and everyone gets all dressed up in either fancy or fancy casual clothes. Depending on the show, the Van Wezel see’s more adults and seniors going to the theater. But this night was a night that was filled with adults, seniors and children. The little children that were at the theater were ages from 5- 13 or 14 years old, as well as some college students. The little children got all dressed up in dresses and little suits (for the little boys). Some of the little girls were wearing the Belle Princess dress (the big yellow dress) and one little girl that wore Snow White (her dress is yellow on the bottom).

The prices of the tickets can be a bit much (from $55.00, $75.00 or more), but sometimes the theater will do “student rush tickets” and a student would only have to pay $15.00. That was not the case for me. Last week before the play came to the Van Wezel, I spoke to a woman in the ticket booth and she told me that I could get my ticket for Beauty and the Beast for $15.00. But when I came to the theater last night, a different woman was at the ticket booth and she told me that there were no “student rush tickets” for Beauty and the Beast. I had to pay $55.00!!! Luckily I had money to spend (even though I was looking forward to paying $15.00 like the other woman told me), but I didn’t like that I was mislead to think that I was able to get the lower price ticket. But even with spending extra money for my ticket, it was worth it. I knew that I had to see this play. Maybe that’s the case with why some people would spend more money to see a play. Everyone loves to be entertained and see a Broadway show (that came from New York City) is something that is worth spending money on (even if the economy might be bad or if you have to decide what you should spend your money on).

This was a special night for not only me, but for my roommates and for other people that have never seen the play version of the Disney animated movie. The Broadway version of Beauty and the Beast was my first Broadway play that I saw when I was about nine years old (I even saw it twice when I was little), and I was heart broken on hearing about that last year was going to be its last year on Broadway in New York City. Years later, when looking on the Van Wezel website last semester. I was thrilled and excited to see this play that has touched my childhood and what started my passion for going to the theater and seeing many other Broadway shows.  My two roommates haven’t seen the play before and haven’t been back to the Van Wezel since freshman year at Ringling College of Art & Design. That was when the school required us to go to two shows and do an illustration of the performance we saw. So they were excited for coming back to the theater and seeing a real show, without the need to do work for it. Lots of the children that were there never knew that this was a show on Broadway in New York City (from 1994 to 2007).  I think most of the adults might have known of the history of this play, although others maybe just seeing this play for the first time. Nonetheless, everyone had a great time.

The performers did an excellent job. The sets were beautiful and the music was outstanding just like the movie. This play is only staying at the Van Wezel for three evening performances, starting at 7:00 pm, from Feb 7th to the 9th.  Every seat in the theater was filled and at the end of the performance, everyone was clapping their hands and giving the performers a standing ovation. I know that the opening night probably got the same appreciation by the audience and my guess is that tonight (Feb 9^th, 2011) will be a full house and just like last night, everyone will give a standing ovation.