# Beauty and the Beast Spinning thing.



## CHScrew (Dec 1, 2006)

I have seen Beauty and the Beast many times and still can't figure this one out. In the Broadway show, after he get's stabbed on the rooftops. The Beast is flown up into the air and he starts spinning head-over-heels. There are strobes and blacklights and such going on to distrace the audience. The Beast starts spinning faster and faster... then... He stops spinning and he has changed from the Beast into the Prince. 

HOW???

Does anyone know. Thanks in advance.


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## Rhonda (Dec 5, 2006)

Our school did Beauty and the Beast about a year before i came.
Anyone who ever has worked in the show is in a bound contract by Disney to never reveal how they do their stage tricks.

So unless someone here is willing to disobey their contract to Disney, or know someone who did, this is one of Life's Unsolved Mysteries.


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## SocksOnly (Dec 5, 2006)

Mwahaha, I'm not under Disney contract. I'm not sure if this's how they did it on Broadway, but here's how we did it:

We had a 'fake beast' with makeup and all get stabbed and stumble behind a pillar. The real beast, who is without makeup, stumbles over to a turn table, puts his feet in a pair of straps, and crew members spin the turntable from below. He thrashes (keeping his head down to keep the audience from noticing that he has a human face), we go nuts with the strobes and fog, and when he stops suddenly he throws off his cape and mask (which are conveniently attatched, the attatchment hidden by his mane) and he's a handsome prince.

Hm, hopefully I won't be whisked away in black vans by the Disney Corp tonight...:shock:


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## Moose (Dec 5, 2006)

Yeah, I know I'm not bound by Disney. Even if I am, They're welcome to come get me and take me away. I don't know how they did it on Broadway, but this is how we did it. 

We had a fake beast also, and he was the one who got stabbed and all and then he would stumble back into the west wing (the balcony was attached and we had it turned out for certain scenes) and would exit the set through the fireplace in the west wing. The real beast was already laying on the floor of the west wing completely human with a costume piece over him that had a beast head on it and than fabric hanging from it. And because the west wing had sort of a cut off wall thing on the front, all you could see from the audience was belle with his head in her lap as he's "Dying". And then we went crazy with lights and such stuff as the real beast moved around the costume piece. Then we had a fire extinguisher hooked up through a vent in the floor that went off and when that went off he would throw down the costume piece and be standing there human. The timing took a lot, but it worked out for all three shows.

Hope that made some sort of sense to everyone. It was really a lot of fun and people ALWAYS ask how we did it.

There's a scary man standing at my door with handcuffs...is that Disney?


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## SocksOnly (Dec 6, 2006)

Oh yeah, I forgot about him dying and all. Ours seems pretty consistent with yours, Moose.

We also rented this really expensive junk from Chicago...like Maurice's invention (they actually taped a sign on it that said "touch and you die") and this rose that dropped petals on cue. We pretty much blew the entire budget on that one (we came out even though, all three nights sold out- we could've actually done two weekends).


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## Van (Dec 6, 2006)

Two Weekends ? OMG ! I run shows for an average of 7 weeks at a time. Let me tell you it makes a huge diference in the way you build things. and imagine the rental costs that my ME incurs. 'Course now that I think back I guess when I was in H.S. we only ran shows for a couple of weekends too. < 'course we had to walk to school, Up hill both ways, in Snow up to our armpits, and the whole class shared one book that we got to read only one page at a time and ......>

Sorry for the Hijack, just had to interject


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## TechiGoz (Dec 6, 2006)

A school I work for is doing Beauty and the Beast next year for their year 12s. Anyone with ideas on what they did? What did you think was good? 
Thanks!


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## Moose (Dec 6, 2006)

the actor that played our Maurice actually built his own invention that he could actually drive. It was really nice and it was cool to see him put all that time and energy into it. My lighting designer managed to pull off making his own rose with a petals that fell when someone under the west wing pulled something. I didn't get to know how it worked but I'm pretty sure it was magnetic. Ours sold out one night, and came really close the other two nights. Beauty and the Beast just always seems to be a very sucessful show...must be the Disney magic!


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## SocksOnly (Dec 6, 2006)

It's a fun show too. I remember one of the cues on the sheet was "duck" and we all stood around for ten minutes laughing, thinking our SM stuck it in to amuse us. Turns out we all forgot that Gaston shoots a duck in the village scene...we had plenty of good times that spring. (I had standardized testing during Hell Week...that was interesting to say the least)

We didn't run it for two weekends, unfortunately. We only purchased the rights to do it for three days- we sold out for all three shows about a week after the box office opened. I'm sure we would've sold out the next weekend too. Our auditorium capacity is about 1750 people, so I'd say yeah, it's a popular show.

This year we're doing Music Man...urgh. Such a letdown after that.


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## kovacika (Dec 7, 2006)

Our invention in my high school ejected soft "pieces" (painted styrofoam) into the crowd when it was supposed to malfunction.


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## SocksOnly (Dec 7, 2006)

That's actually really cool. We just shot a quick blast of fog onto the stage for that (we got really fog happy)...


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## danl (Dec 11, 2006)

we did beauty and the beast a few years ago:
http://www.revolutionfreedom.com/design/theater_beauty.html
for the death/transformation scene, gaston fought a stand-in beast before he fell off of the balcony of the west wing to his death... the "fake" beast had collapsed onto the floor and belle proceeds to weep over him...
as the last petal fell (or was tugged by invisible twine) and the light on the rose faded, the stand-in stood up with his back to the audience, removed a "beast hand" to expose a human hand, jerked and writhed, and then...
with a hundred flashes of really annoying yet perfectly distracting overhead lighting effects in the house, we were able to quickly switch out the stand in with "the prince" in a stage blackout, only to have him revealed when the stage lights came back up...
the audience fell for it... pretty lame...


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## danl (Dec 11, 2006)

oh, and i forgot to mention that at the last moment before this blackout, as the stand-in beast was convulsing, we shot a huge upward stream of smoke from the stage floor just in front of him --- then to blackout and sensory overload lighting effects...

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danl said:


> we did beauty and the beast a few years ago:
> http://www.revolutionfreedom.com/design/theater_beauty.html
> for the death/transformation scene, gaston fought a stand-in beast before he fell off of the balcony of the west wing to his death... the "fake" beast had collapsed onto the floor and belle proceeds to weep over him...
> as the last petal fell (or was tugged by invisible twine) and the light on the rose faded, the stand-in stood up with his back to the audience, removed a "beast hand" to expose a human hand, jerked and writhed, and then...
> ...


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## bcfcst4 (Mar 11, 2007)

Van said:


> Two Weekends ? OMG ! I run shows for an average of 7 weeks at a time. Let me tell you it makes a huge diference in the way you build things. and imagine the rental costs that my ME incurs. 'Course now that I think back I guess when I was in H.S. we only ran shows for a couple of weekends too. < 'course we had to walk to school, Up hill both ways, in Snow up to our armpits, and the whole class shared one book that we got to read only one page at a time and ......>
> 
> Sorry for the Hijack, just had to interject


...that was a tad mean, don't you think?


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## Thefoxygranpa (Mar 14, 2007)

I recently just did a production of Beauty and one of the original ideas was to have a hydrolic lift bring Beast up as he transformed. Sadly that was cut, instead we did this. After Beast was stabbed, he fell to the ground, and as Belle weaped over him we had nitrogen come up from under them and engulf them. As this all happened Beast removed his hands/cape/mask and threw them out of a door. When the nitrogen came down and rolled off the set Beast would stand up and do his line. I couldn't even see him remove all his costume =] .


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