All You Need To Know About Beauty and the Beast at GVHS

By: Carli Fruchtl

On March 6th, Beauty and the Beast at GVHS will have its opening night! Before this special day, there will be a student preview during both learns in the Auditorium on Monday, March 4th! Following auditions in November, this incredibly talented cast has been working tirelessly since the beginning of January to put together this wonderful production. 

The show runs from March 6th to March 9th with five shows instead of the usual four. For this show, there are two casts of talented leads. The Evening Cast can be seen in the Thursday, Friday, and Saturday night shows at 6:30 and the Matinee Cast can be seen in the Wednesday and Saturday Matinee show at 6:30 on Wednesday and 1:30 on Saturday. 

The title characters in the Evening Cast are played by Lauren Cusick as Belle and Jeremy Park as the Beast. The enchanted castle is lit up by the magic of Max Hunter as the Lumiere, Lili Giribaldi as Mrs. Potts, Chase Popillio as Cogsworth, Alana Acosta as Madame de la Grande Bouche, Katie Izykowski as Babette, and Maddie Moore as Chip. Additionally, some friends in the village include Cole Miller as Gaston, Michael Stuardi as Lefou, and Aidan Simpkiss as Maurice. 

In the Matinee Cast, the beautiful Belle is being played by Mia McCloskey, and the fiery Beast is played by Brady Thompson. The magical creatures bringing humor and love to the stage are Lumiere played by Joey Davis, Mrs. Potts played by Allie Kotch, Cogsworth played by Gavin Garcia, Madame de la Grande Bouche played by Aubrey Schneider, Babette played by Ashley Danehower, and Chip being played by Alexis Weaver. In the village, you can find Gaston played by Charles Benny, Lefou played by Levi Schnatz, and Maurice played by Nova Figurelle.

Of course, a show wouldn’t be complete without a team of hard-working behind-the-scenes students. Some of our Stage and Tech Crew students such as Raigen Roades, Meredith Strickland, Sarah Mochocki, Jake Figurelle, Michael Schumacher, Joey Maier, and Leah Foster worked to put together the incredible set and props as well as truly lighting up the stage with their impressive lighting and sounds skills. Their backstage organization keeps the production running smoothly every day and we couldn’t have a show without them. Ella Ticknor and Camryn Schwartz are the extremely talented students hands behind the gorgeous costumes. This show features 370+ costumes from a human teapot to about 50 napkins and none of it could have been done without their amazing expertise. 

Additionally, our Student Directors, Dage Newkirk, and Jeanne Eppler kept our practices productive and creative with their amazing notes and overall management skills. Our hard-working Student Choreographers Carli Fruchtl, Virginia Hayes, and Skylar Saul put together beautiful company numbers and helped in every aspect of our 70+ person “Be Our Guest” number as well as many others. Finally, our super-talented Student Music Directors, Aubrey Schneider, and Jeremy Park kept us motivated and focused in order to put together our beautiful vocals.

You don’t want to miss all of these talented people bringing this story to life on the GVHS stage next weekend! Get your tickets at gvpaa.org before they sell out!