Happy Valentine’s Day

Last Wednesday night Wally and I celebrated Valentine’s Day! You probably think we never get the special days celebrated on the special days. We do, but this year Wally bought tickets for us to see “Beauty and the Beast” which did not show until March. So last Wednesday we went to the Buell Theatre in downtown  for the event.  To top it off we had dinner before the play at Elway’s.  It’s located very near us here in the Cherry Creek North shopping area.  We got in there early and enjoyed a quiet dinner…no early bird specials however!    When we left Wally was checking out all the cars in the valet parking area…Porsche, Porsche, Porsche, Mercedes, Bentley and a Subaru!

Here we are with our appetizers, mini Australian lobster tails and jumbo Mexican shrimp…they were about the same size.  They were brought out in these little dishes, I guess on dry ice because they were smoking.  I asked the waiter if they were “smokin’ good?”  I’m not sure he appreciated my sense of humor! 

After dinner we headed to the theatre…

Sad was I to discover they would allow no cameras!  Many people were using iPhones but the ushers quickly pounced…I mean asked the users to put them away!  So I did not even try.  I did take a couple pics of my commemorative program (which cost 20.00!!) to try and show you some of the costumes and sets.  It was quite the show.

Here’s Belle and the town’s people in the opening scene.  They had three or four cottages to represent the town that were moved around on wheels (I suppose) by the village folk, singing as Belle walked the village…made it appear as though she actually walked through the village!

Here is Gaston and Lafou.  I thought Gaston looked a lot like Adam Cartwright off of Bonanza!  But he did have a rich baritone voice…much like the voice in the Disney animated version.  I had a flashback to Kenny and Wesley singing along on the song…”and every last bit of me’s covered with hair!”…and they would pull their shirts open like Gaston.  Wes was pretty small, so that was quite some time ago when the movie came out.

 

Back to the play,  the scene where the dining room comes to life was just as spectacular on stage, dancing forks and knives, plates rolling by and even champagnes bottles popping at the end and spraying out…with streamers spraying out into the audience! 

Here’s a couple more characters…Cogsworth, Lumierre and the Duster!

                              

There were a lot of special effects used throughout the play.  The march on the castle by Gaston was pretty realistic with the use of smoke, lights and see through backdrops that were constantly changing.

At the end of the animated movie, just as the last petal drops from the rose and Belle expresses her love for the Beast, breaking the spell, the Beast is lifted from the ground and transformed back into the Prince.  It happened on the stage too!  We were staring as the Beast was lifted and then two big poofs and bright lights shone out into the audience and there stood the Prince!  I thought it was all well done!  And it was a fun night!