Eight years … of wearing make-up appliances that are so thick & complicated that only his eyes, his cheek bones and part of his forehead show.
Eight years … of performing while wearing a 30 pound costume.
Eight years … of eight-performances-a-week work weeks. Of struggling to sing power ballads during ragweed season and/or while inhaling the gunk that wafts in off of 46th Street.
Is it any wonder that Steve Blanchard — the actor who’s been playing the Beast in the Broadway production of Disney’s “Beauty and the Beast” since 1999 — is feeling a wee bit weary right about now.
“I hurt in places I didn’t even know I could hurt,” Blanchard admitted in a recent interview. “Which is why I’m really looking forward to taking the next few weeks off.”
Steve Blanchard as the Beast in the Broadway production
of Disney’s “Beauty and the Beast.” Photo by Joan Marcus
Copyright 2007 Disney
Well, if Steve really is hurting … You’d never know from the performance that he’s been giving at the Lunt-Fontanne. Where Blanchard just go-go-goes as the Beast. Particularly in the first act of the show. Where he races upstairs and leaps on chairs, putting all sort of energy into menacing Belle and her father, Maurice.
“There’s a reason for that,” Steve explained. “Jim Harker, the original stage manager of Broadway’s ‘Beauty and the Beast,’ once told me that — when you’re playing the Beast — you can never let up in Act One. You really have to come on strong then, be as loud & gruff as you can. Otherwise, the audience isn’t going to care about your character when he starts to change in Act Two.”
As you listen to Blanchard talk about “B & B,” it’s clear that he takes great pride in being associated with this long-running Disney Theatrical production. Which is really kind of ironic. Given that — back in 1993 — when Disney originally asked Steve to come try out for the show, he almost blew off that audition.
“I was down in Florida touring in ‘Camelot,’ ” he remembered. “And since it was my day off, I was planning on playing golf. But then Ron Rodriguez — who handled all of the casting for Walt Disney Entertainment back then — asked me to read for the role of Gaston. And even though I hadn’t even seen the movie at that point, I figured that I should probably go check it out.”
Photo courtesy of Steve Blanchard
So Blanchard flew up to New York and auditioned for the show. And clearly the folks at Disney Theatrical must have liked what they saw in Steve. For a year after “Beauty and the Beast” opened on Broadway, he was recruited to be the show’s stand-by performer for both the Beast and Gaston.
“I then went on to play the Beast in the Toronto company of this show. Then — starting in 1997 — I became Broadway’s Gaston,” Blanchard continued. “Then in 1999, just three months before we moved from the Palace over to the Lunt-Fontanne, I switched over to playing the Beast. So it was kind of bizarre to go from being the hero to the villain back to being the hero in the very same show.”
Mind you, that wasn’t the only change that Steve would have make during the many years that he worked on Disney’s “Beauty and the Beast.” He recalled how he really had to scale back his performance as the Beast once the company got settled in their new home on 46th Street.
Steve Blanchard and Sarah Uriate Berry in the Broadway production of
Disney’s “Beauty and the Beast.” Copyright 2006 Disney
“You have to understand that the Palace is this big old barn of a theater, where you really have to fill the space, make these huge gestures in order to reach all of those people seated in the back of the house,” Blanchard explained. “Whereas the Lunt-Fontanne is a much more intimate performance space with the audience right there in front of you. So the vaudeville stuff that we used to do in the Palace just didn’t play in the new theater. It came across as too big, too hammy. Which is why we all had to scale back our performances at the Lunt-Fontanne.”
The upside of moving “Beauty and the Beast” to a new Broadway theater and scaling back the performances is — at least from Steve’s point of view — the show actually began playing better. This then-5-year-old Disney musical came across as a warmer, much more intimate show in its new location. Thanks — in large part — because the audience is so much closer to the stage at the Lunt-Fontanne.
“And when you can tap into that energy that the audience is giving you and then pour it into your own performance,” Blanchard continued, “Well … That’s what makes it all worthwhile. The heavy costume and the make-up and the allergies don’t really matter then.”
That said, people in the theater community clearly recognize all of the hard work that Steve puts into his portrayal of the Beast. Which is why — earlier this year — this Disney Theatrical vet was honored by having his caricature added to Sardi’s great wall of drawings.
Copyright 2007 Disney. Photo by Lyn Hughes
Anyway … This Sunday night, after nearly eight years of playing the Beast at the Lunt-Fontanne, Blanchard will take his final bow in Broadway’s “Beauty and the Beast.” And after that, will this actor be looking to put a little distance between himself and Disney Theatrical? Hardly.
“I’m actually flying out to Denver next month,” Steve laughed. “My girl friend — Meredith Inglesby, who used to play Babette in ‘Beauty and the Beast’ — is now in the cast of ‘The Little Mermaid.’ There’s no escaping the Mouse these days.”
Speaking of which … If you’d like to see Broadway’s “Beauty and the Beast” before the final curtain falls, you’d best get a move on. There are only a handful of performances left ’til this Disney Theatrical production officially closes this Sunday night.
There are three easy ways to score seats to this acclaimed stage musical:
- Online at www.disneyonbroadway.com
- Via Ticketmaster at (212) 307-4747 or www.ticketmaster.com
- In person at the Lunt-Fontanne box office (205 West 46th Street).
Get your tickets now before the final bow !