Be our guest: 30th anniversary 'Beauty and the Beast' comes to Tucson

Made sense; West choreographed the original Broadway production in 1994.

"I said no," he recalled.

Instead, West wanted to reimagine the show from top to bottom.

Disney was thrilled.

With the behemoth entertainment conglomerate's blessing, West got the original band back together to create a 30th anniversary edition of the show. 

Broadway In Tucson brings the musical to Centennial Hall June 16-21.

Reimagining a classic

In 2021, in the middle of the COVID-19 pandemic, West revised his role as choreographer and added director to his duties as he reunited with the original "Beauty" bookwriter Linda Woolverton, scenic designer Stanley A. Meyer, orchestrator Danny Troob and costume designer Ann Hould-Ward. 

West said he and the team went "from the top of the show, the prologue, all the way through to the bows, and we started rethinking it."

The goal was to make the production more contemporary, from "wordsmithing" some of the dialogue — "We took out a word here, we changed the word there, we got rid of some words altogether that we didn't feel set well with the way society acts and reacts today," he explained — to introducing new dance music and dances.

"I went back in and throughout all of my dances, all the old dance music ... and completely started over with the dances," West said. "They are all new; every dance is brand new, and 'Be Our Guest' is now an 11-minute long extravaganza of musical styles. It has tango and a huge, full company tap section at the end."

The tap segment was purely selfish, he confessed.

"When I was 6 years old, my first dance class was tap, and I didn't put it into this show originally," said West, who started working for Disney when he was 14. "Now I had the opportunity to go back and put some of my life into the show, and as director I could really do whatever I wanted, right?"

More thinker, less princess

The story of "Beauty and the Beast" is unchanged: A spoiled prince is turned into a hideous beast and his servants into household objects as punishment for his cruelty. The only way the curse can be reversed is for someone to fall in love with him.

Enter Belle, an intelligent bookworm who becomes a prisoner of the Beast to spare her father. Seems Dad got lost in the woods and ended up trespassing at the Beast's castle. Belle agrees to switch places if Beast frees her dad.

Woolverton, who wrote the original book, revisited Belle, making the character more of an action-oriented, contemporary thinker rather than a traditional princess, West said.

" 'Beauty and the Beast' is one of the few Disney fairytales that doesn't have the girl waiting for the guy," he said. "Belle, the heroine of this fable, wants her own life. She wants her own adventures. She wants to create them. She doesn't want them given to her, and that's a contemporary story."

Woolverton and West made Beast's character darker, especially in the first act. But there's that Disney fine line to toe; Beast's dark side is replaced with the awkwardness of a young man working through first-date jitters.

"I think that 'Beauty and the Beast' has a lot of humor baked into it," West said. "It's a fun show, and it's meant to be fun, ... but I wanted to give it as much heart as I could."

'Beauty' meets 21st century

The show also has moved into the 21st century with its use of an LED wall to project scenery. The projections, which have been met with mixed reviews from audiences and critics since the tour launched last summer, allow the production to move more cinematically between scenes.

"On a big show like this, we go to a lot of locations. We go not only to the town and Belle's house, but a pub," West explained. "Then in the castle, we go to a dungeon and a throne room and a west wing and a library. And then we do Gaston's number outside and inside. ...  It matches up to practical scenery, so the idea is to blur the eye so you can't figure out where one starts and the other begins."

Then of course there's Disney magic, like the "Chip illusion" special effects where we see just the head of Chip the teacup, son of Mrs. Potts, the housekeeper turned teapot. 

"In many ways it moves cinematically now even better than the original, and I'm very proud of that," West said.

The 30th anniversary tour is the first time in 25 years that Disney has brought the show to the stage.

'Beauty' begat 'Lion King' and a whole new era for Broadway

"Beauty and the Beast," which opened on Broadway on April 18, 1994, was Disney's first live-staged musical, inspired by the animated film that was a global hit just a few years earlier.

But getting Disney to sign onto the idea of Broadway was not easy. 

When West and a couple of his Disney coworkers based in New York first approached then Disney chief Michael Eisner with the idea, he said no.

"Producers lose money on Broadway, and we're not into losing money," West recalled of his boss's response. "And he said, 'But you can ask me again'."

A few months later, West and his group returned with a fleshed-out plan of what Disney Theatrical would look like and how it would work.

"We were in the middle of the presentation, and it was going very well, I thought, and he stopped us and said, 'You guys just aren't going to shut up, are you? You're going to bug me and bug me and bug me 'till I let you try something'," West said of the conversation. "And we said, 'Yeah'."

Eisner relented and suggested that they consider a stage version of "Beauty." 

Matt and the team they assembled soon realized the scope of what they were doing.     

"We weren't only creating Disney's first Broadway show, we were right in the middle of the genesis for Disney opening a new division of the company," he said. 

Disney Theatrical Group's timing couldn't have been more ideal. The 1990 Gulf War led to a recession that had whiplashed Broadway. Theaters went dark or closed altogether, and those that were open struggled to sell tickets. Audiences and the industry as a whole needed something to excite them out of their financial doldrums.

"Beauty" was that ticket.

Although the show was met with mixed critical reviews when it opened, it quickly became a commercial hit, selling $700,000 worth of tickets on its second day. That was a record for the Palace Theatre, where it ran for five box-office-breaking years before moving to the Lunt-Fontanne Theatre in 1999. It closed on July 29, 2007, after a 13-year, 5,464 regular-performance Broadway run.

Four years after "Beauty" opened, Disney took a bigger leap with the stage adaptation of its animated musical "The Lion King," which featured giant puppets and masks that brought the African safari to life and won director Julie Taymor two Tonys.

Since 2000, Disney has brought seven more musicals to Broadway, including "The Little Mermaid," "Newsies" and "Aladdin." 

Since the 30th anniversary tour opened in Schenectady, New York, late last June, "Beauty and the Beast" has played in more than 40 cities. It is expected to continue through 2027. 

"I have worked for Disney for 53 years, but 'Beauty and the Beast' will always be one of the most special moments and special projects in my life," West said.