“Beauty and the Beast” is a familiar tale to many of us – especially here in Orlando – so when Central Florida Community Arts’ directors chose to take it on, they decided to make it their own by bringing together performers from all of their programs in a live concert version of the show.
Justin Muchoney is the Vice President for Creative and Production. He says "Disney's Beauty and the Beast: In Concert" emphasizes the “community” part of Central Florida Community Arts.
Justin Muchoney:
We know that there are a lot of places in this town that you can go see this particular story told. So we really wanted to make sure that we could present this story in a way most people haven't experienced before. And at CFC Arts, we are really committed to accessibility and inclusivity. We believe that all stages in this community should be for all people in this community. So we set out to cast the biggest, broadest and most inclusive production that we could. There will be almost 250 musicians, singers, actors, and dancers involved in the production, and we're representing the full breadth of the programming that we do at CFC Arts. So there'll be 120 choir members, a 49 piece Symphony Orchestra, dancers, professional actors and singers from town and then also narrators from our older adults acting troupe, nine dancers from our Upbeat theatre troupe, which is a theatre troupe specifically for teens and young adults with Down syndrome and autism and other exceptionalities. We have 12 of our Youth Theatre performers performing right alongside some of our adults, our seniors...it's a really kind of broad and inclusive production. Yet, it is still the story, as they say, the "tale as old as time." So it's the entire Broadway musical presented in this really expansive and powerful concert format, where the community on the stage reflects the community that we live in.
Nicole Darden Creston:
Tell me a little bit more about that dedication to inclusivity. It does sound like you've got a lot of different groups involved.
Justin Muchoney:
We do! So, we have members of our orchestra and our big band and our youth orchestra all participating side-by-side in the pit orchestra for this. And then we have students as young as about nine or 10 years old all the way up through, you know, adults in their 80s. And we've drawn from across our community, and from CFC Arts programming, because our objective was to make sure that when you attend this performance, when you sit in the audience, and you look up at that stage, no matter who you are, that you could see yourself reflected in this community, and in this production in some way. We want everyone to be able to see themselves on a stage, to see themselves represented in the way that we choose to tell stories and the types of stories we choose to tell. It's still sweeping and it's still romantic. And it's incredibly funny and the action's great and the dancing is great. But it's still all told through a lens of including everybody in the journey.
Nicole Darden Creston:
Why does CFC Arts find that particular element to be so important?
Justin Muchoney:
There is power in representation, there's power in believing that you are capable of more than maybe somebody has told you at some point in time. One of the phrases we use internally a lot is that we will continue to say "yes" to people who have traditionally been told "no." So, if at some point in your journey, someone said, "You're not a great singer," or has said, "Theater is not for you. That's really not meant for you," we believe that everyone deserves to hear "yes," at some point in time. The community that has built, the confidence that is gained from live performance and from theater and from the rehearsal process, the friendships, the social skills, the social interaction that comes from it. There's just so many strengths from performing, from the performing arts. And we believe that far too often people have been kind of excluded from or withheld from all of those other benefits. And we want to be the place that changes that. There's also for us, like I said earlier, there's a lot of places that you can see this story told, and one of our differentiators is spectacle. You will get to see something when you come to a CFC Arts performance that is on a scale you don't normally see. We're one of the only places in town that can put 200 singers on a stage and provide a full symphony orchestra for a pit for a Broadway show. So we lean into those things that make it a really joyous, celebratory kind of experience because it's better for the audience. And it's really better for the people in the show to look around and know that they are a part of something bigger than they ever could have done on their own.
Nicole Darden Creston:
You mentioned the rehearsal process. Have you had any particular moments in that rehearsal process that have stood out for you?
Justin Muchoney:
Lots of them. I'm sure this happens in every production, in every show, where there's just some glorious intervention, where the kind of universal lines and the right people are in the room at the right times to really create magical experiences. And for us, that focus is always on how people feel about themselves and those around them, we try to make sure that our rehearsals are nurturing and encouraging and uplifting. And that through the entire process, everyone knows how grateful we are that they're choosing to be with us on this journey. And we go out of our way to celebrate the people who may not normally get celebrated. So one of my favorites was just from this past week, the first time that we got all together in the venue for us...so we've got our choir and orchestra and our dancers and our full cast of actors and singers. And we get to the "Be Our Guest" number, you know, highlight of Act One, everyone's most familiar, most epic number in the first half of the show. And the napkins who traditionally dance as a part of the big dance break in "Be Our Guest" are made up of performers from our Upbeat theater troupe. So these are performers who have not had the chance yet in their careers, to be on a stage this big to be surrounded by this large of a supporting cast, and to be featured, to have the entire cast part and then be placed center stage with their chance to shine. So the first time that they ran that choreography, the cast just exploded in applause, like when they were done, the cheers, and these performers are just bowing in front of their peers, you know, they were soaking it in, they were smiling, they were waving, they were bowing, they were embracing it. And those moments when people lift up other people, they happen all of the time, if you're paying attention, and we craft our rehearsal processes to try to make sure that those can be very intentionally celebrated moments. And I'm not kidding when I say we've had experiences like that in every step of this journey.
Nicole Darden Creston:
Absolutely beautiful, Justin. What is coming up next?
Justin Muchoney:
We have so much planned for CFC Arts this fall. It's absolutely incredible. Our big band, which was just a recently voted in Orlando Weekly as the number one jazz act in Orlando, is going to be performing at the Dr. Phillips Center [for the Performing Arts in Orlando] in October doing a fun Halloween-themed big band concert that we're calling "Ghoulish Grooves," everything from "Grim Grinning Ghosts" from [Disney's] Haunted Mansion to the Munsters and the Addams Family and Thriller. It's gonna be a blast, and then our full symphony orchestra, which at this point in time numbers right around 300 musicians, the largest orchestra in the country, are going to be performing in Steinmetz Hall in November presenting our celebration of 100 years of Disney music. So we're calling it Symphonic Disney, there will be more musicians onstage in Steinmetz Hall than you could possibly comprehend. And it's just going to be an incredibly powerful night of music. Our Youth Theater is performing constantly, we've got productions of Alice in Wonderland and Christmas Carol and Rudolph on the horizon. So we have programming happening for everyone in your family. Beauty and the Beast performs tonight, and tomorrow night at Northland, up in Longwood, and these are going to be absolutely just triumphant, joyous performances, the quality and the talent on the stage will absolutely blow you away and the sense of community in the room is going to leave you feeling really good about this place we call home.
