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Date: 11/10/2016
EAST LONGMEADOW – Sue Maciorowski, a lifelong resident and one of the visual development artists for Disney’s 1991 animated “Beauty and the Beast,” is lending her talents as set designer to the St. Michael’s Players for an upcoming theatrical version of the classic story.
Maciorowski told Reminder Publications she was part of a team of six to eight people that developed original story concepts for the animated film. The team was tasked with collaborating to find a way to take the classic story and make it into something that had never been done before.
“We even met with [playwright and lyricist] Howard Ashman in New York to go over ideas with him and create the story basically,” she added. “The original script, for instance, had Cogsworth and Lumière and I came up with the concept that you had to have a female confidant character in there to comfort Belle and relax her – to allow her in 78 minutes to fall in love.”
Her original concept for the female confidant character was pitched as Madame Armoire because she believed the character would have been big enough to protect Belle and keep her safe from the Beast, Maciorowski said.
“Then it’s such a collaborative thing and we realized when we started drawing out the story that and eight-foot wardrobe and a one-foot clock just doesn’t see eye to eye easily,” she explained. “Another guy had come up within the meantime the teapot character with Angela Lansbury. So, my character got melded with her character and that’s how it works.”
The final character that was created from that collaborative process was Mrs. Potts, she noted.
Maciorowski said she worked on the film from 1988 to 1990 and is credited under her maiden name Sue Nichols.
She explained she also had a hand in developing the main villain Gaston and his sidekick LeFou.
“The concept of LeFou being like a mini-me to show the bad side of Gaston, because it was the first time Disney had done a villain that didn’t look like a villain, he looked like a hero,” Maciorowski said.
As for the upcoming St. Michael’s Players production, which is set to run Nov. 17 to 19 at 7 p.m. with a Nov. 20 matinee show at 2 p.m., Maciorowski said the vision of the production is to take some inspiration from Disney, but to add their own original ideas to the mix.
“I try to throw in a little influence from the film, but basically we want to make something that’s fun and new – something that’s exciting – because you don’t want to copy the film,” she noted. “The challenge of doing it in theatre with low budget community theatre is different from a full Disney production. So that’s the fun thing. How do we create something with volunteer services on no budget and make it feel like a lush Disney production?”
The story would remain much the same, she explained.
When asked about her thoughts about bringing the classic story to East Longmeadow, she said, “It’s funny because after 25 to 30 years of being in the industry my life back here has never merged with my work life out there and so it feels like two universes merging,” she added. “It’s been really interesting. It’s really fun too to say, ‘Hey, this is what I do and if you need any help I can answer any questions.’”
The play will take place at St. Michael’s Parish, located at 53 Somers Road.
For more information about the production visit www.stmichaelsplayers.wixsite.com/stmichaelsplayers.