SOUL FOOD:Cast focuses on inner beauty in ‘Beast’

They were as good as set to produce “The Music Man” when the spirit intervened, says director Mary Storms.

During a theater-in-the-round production of Disney’s “Beauty and the Beast” she was persuaded it was the play her Huntington Beach North Stake of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints should do next, too.

The play’s producer, Cindy Torgerson, wasn’t quite as quickly convinced. But as she thought it over and prayed about it Storms’ conviction began to feel right.

They were looking for an uplifting play suitable for all ages to see and perform. “Beauty and the Beast” seemed to fit the bill, Torgerson eventually agreed.

So in November they began to cast stake members for more than 100 roles. Each of 18 lead roles was double-cast.

On Saturday, between two of four rehearsals, the 76-year-old Storms said ages among the cast ranged from 6 to 106. Then she conceded she was joking.

The range is really 6 to 80. “Sometimes I just feel 106,” the 40-year veteran of musical productions said, “after six 12-hour days in a row working at my [full-time] job and on the play.”

This is the 14th production Storms has directed for the stake in twice as many years. As in the past, her main goal from the beginning has been to allow “everyone to have a chance.”

Many wouldn’t make it into a production if they had to try out, Torgerson said.

“We help people with two left feet learn to dance [and] teach people who can barely carry a tune to sing,” explains assistant director Linda Grow.

“Put them with a teacher and other singers and make them sing the songs over and over and over again,” she said and the tone deaf will eventually harmonize “99% of the time.” For the young or slow-footed, the show’s choreographers created simple dances.

Even common stage fright is banished with enough practice and encouragement, Grow said. “Coming from people you trust and from your peers [encouragement] is a powerful prescription.”

Being in the musical required only a $20 costume fee (waived were it a hardship), while many community theater productions levy prohibitively heftier amounts. And where many theater groups rehearse on Sundays, the Latter-day Saints stake never does.

Managing two lead casts doubled Storms’ work but also compounded her pleasure. As she sees it, double-casting the play gave twice as many people a chance to develop and showcase their talents.

None of those cast as lead characters are understudies. They alternate performances.

When not in their lead roles, they perform elsewhere in the cast.

“They invariably end up helping each other, enjoying each other’s performance and interpretation of the character,” Storms said.

Since January, Storms and the cast and dozens of others — set builders, costumers, make-up artists, choreographers, stage crew, drama coaches, voice coaches, sound and lighting technicians — have racked up thousands of hours readying the play for opening night. All of them volunteers, they have labored without pay, taking time away from other interests and patient families.

The stake produces a Broadway-style musical every few years but this has so far been the largest and most taxing. Costume rentals for part of the cast and royalties ran at a premium.

There’s been the herding of teenagers (akin to herding cats, Storms said) and tracking them down when they weren’t in their dressing rooms, which are strewn all over the stake building. “But we love them dearly and wouldn’t have it any other way,” she added.

A choreographer broke a toe. Costume harnesses have in some cases drawn blood. Michael Fricke cut off a fingertip while building part of a set.

Yet no one seems to be counting the costs as much as the rewards, the greatest of which, according to Storms, Grow and Torgerson, is seeing how much being in a play can sometimes change a young life. Storms calls it priceless.

Friendships form. Someone comes out of his or her shell. A wayward child finds a better way to spend time. “The list goes on,” Torgerson said.

The stake’s president, Melvin G. Markham, and others say the play was chosen for the lessons it teaches as well as its entertainment value. For Markham its message of “looking beyond the physical outward appearance to what is really in the heart of a person,” is one of its most important.

He also finds a valuable lesson in the attitudes of the Beast’s castle staff. Swept up in his curse, they are slowly becoming inanimate objects, yet they remain buoyant with cheer and hope.

Then there’s Belle’s sacrificial love for her father, as Torgerson pointed out.

“We need more examples these days of families sticking together and being there for each other,” she said of Belle, who risks all she hopes for and even her own life to save her father.

For Storms, there’s a lesson about what can happen when we love one another, working to change ourselves and to help others change from the “not-so-good to the better.”

Compared to the original fairy tale, though, I think the Disney version gives us a mixed bag. Which is something I didn’t think much about until I heard John Mark Reynolds, associate professor of philosophy at Biola University and founder and director of its Torrey Honors Institute, talk about the two stories.

“It’s the humble that are exalted in the original fairy tale but [in the Disney version] it’s the striver who’s exalted,” Reynolds said. “And I’m not sure Americans need to hear more of that right now.”

Like him, I think that’s worth thinking about. But that’s another column, say, for next Thursday.

Meanwhile, if you go see the musical (or revisit the animated film), let me know what you think about lessons to be learned from the Disney story. If you’re familiar with the original tale, that’s all the better.

On Saturday, I took in two rehearsals of the north stake’s production, one with each cast. Both performances made me cry and let me laugh.

They may not be ready for Broadway but what they lack in slickness they more than made up for with heart. The casts and the sets are witty and luminous.

To boot, you won’t have to sell a child to take the rest of your family. Tickets for the play — which runs through May 5 — are $6.

They’re available at the door, by e-mail at [email protected] or by phone at (714) 840-3858. For a schedule of evening and matinee performances go to www.hbnbb.com. Parking is free.