Rosebud students perform new twist on classic

Laureen F. Guenther
Times Contributor

 

Rosebud School of the Arts’ second year students will perform The Masque of Beauty and the Beast, Thursdays to Saturdays, Dec. 4-20.
“It’s a more traditional telling of the original fairy tale,” says Jesse Peachment, one of the cast. “It has elements a lot more similar to Cinderella, in that you have a couple of nasty sisters as well as a father figure, who gets trapped by the Beast. So there’s no singing dancing china in this version.”
The show also includes a very non-traditional twist: Peachment is playing the beauty, named Beau.
Director Peter Balkwill supported the cast to develop the play in an ensemble, which meant they were involved in making artistic and production choices.
“He asked us to compile our own lists of who should play whom,” Peachment says.
And one of the cast members, Chantal Marsolais, suggested they have a woman play the beast with Peachment playing the beauty.
“It really got us thinking and the wheels turning,” he says. “How much more interesting would that be if it was a girl or a woman in that position? And that it was the beautiful man who would have to make that choice?”
They thought it might also ask questions about “the whole aspect of what is really beauty, what is inner beauty, versus what is really ugly?”
As they played with the idea, it grew from there.
They’ll use “shadow work to accent those ideas,” he says. “Rather than directly showing the beast, we’re using a little bit more of the mystique of having her behind a curtain where we have images coming out. It leaves a little bit more to the imagination.”
Working on the show has been “an amazing learning experience.”
There’s only so much students can learn from reading or attending classes, he says.
“Just getting right into the theatre itself … is the best training ground you could have,” he said. “I’ve really just been enjoying the process of learning and being on that journey and just expanding on it bit by bit, learning these different processes, piece by piece, as they come.”
He believes audiences will love the artistic choices they made, including the reverse casting – a female as the beast, and a male as beauty, and “just how we are playing with those aspects of shadow, to bring out the beast in a fun and creative way.”
Beau and his siblings also have a family dynamic that he thinks we’ll love.
“I (Beau) am the youngest child of this, with two siblings with my mother,” he says. “Both siblings despise him (Beau), one more than the other. As well as there’s a competition within the family for the mother’s affection, yet it’s all going to Beau.”
Alysa Glenn, fourth year student, will play the Beast. Second year students Chantal Marsolais, Anna Schroder, Emily Boyle, Jillian Schock and Justin Lanouette are also in the cast. Kelsey Krogman is stage manager.
They’ll perform Beauty and the Beast on Rosebud’s BMO Studio Stage, Thursdays through Saturdays, Dec. 4-20, at 4:30 p.m., with some additional school matinees. $15 advance tickets are available at 1-800-267-7553 or $20 at the door.