Tale as old as time

Marshall Artists Series presents “Beauty and the Beast” Tuesday at the Keith Albee Performing Arts Center.

The Marshall University Artist Series presented Disney’s “Beauty and the Beast” Tuesday at the Keith Albee Performing Arts Center.

Angela Jones, director of marketing and external affairs for the Marshall Artist Series, said the musical is a different kind of show compared to other shows in the Artist Series.

“I really think each show is different,” Jones said. “This is a big, Broadway show and it’s going to be larger in scale than, you know, than a piano soloist, like the BBC Orchestra concert. It’s going to be large too, but it’s going to be different. It’s just an orchestra doing orchestra music with a conductor. This is more of a visual and audio. I think it appeals to different people and typically in every season, we have shows that appeal to different people throughout, so this is no exception.”

The musical tells the classic tale of a beast, a prince under a curse and how he must find true love or he will be stuck under the curse forever.

Additions were made to the Broadway version of the classic.

New songs were added to the musical adaptation. The Beast, who did not sing in the movie, was given three songs in the Broadway version.

“I think it’s pretty creative actually,” Daniel Parlock, sophomore at Marshall, said. “I was in Beauty and the Beast in high school and a lot of the stuff they put in was not written into the play. I think it’s more modernized, so it actually grabs younger attention, but it’s pretty creative. I just love how they incorporate things and make things move smoothly.”

Jones said there was excitement for the musical to come to Huntington since the Artist Series season was released.

“From the very beginning when we announced our season, people have been very excited about it,” Jones said. “People wanted to see Jay Leno, people wanted to see Frankie Valli and people wanted to see Beauty and the Beast. So, I think people are just excited to get the chance to see it in the Keith Albee, which is so amazing to see Broadway shows at the big proscenium theatre.”

Mikaela Keener can be contacted at [email protected].