Saturday night I got to sit in on a performance by the Eau Gallie High School folks of the Broadway play Beauty and the Beast. Most of the leads (especially the Beast and Gaston) were great and the ensemble was fantastic. The dance numbers were astoundingly good (I have no clue how the cast kept all those steps in their heads, or how the choreographer(s) put all that together ), the band’s music was great, and the sets were impressive.

It was pretty easy to forget we were watching a performance by a high school cast and crew — apart from a lackluster Belle and some minor problems with two wireless mics (apparently a flap of fabric on two of the costumes cover up the little mics, but fortunately the two actors with the problem had strong enough voices that they projected just fine without the mics), this is the caliber of show you could expect to see on Broadway. The $10-per-seat ticket price was a steal for this

My congratulations to the cast and crew! My buddy Shannon snapped some shots backstage with my camera (hehehe — nobody said the cast couldn’t snap a few pictures behind the scenes!); they’re available right here, or right here on a separate page in case the “embedded” version goofs up. Standard procedure for both: click the thumbnails for bigger versions; a little magnifying glass w/plus sign icon in the bottom-right corner zooms in even more.