Song:Be Our Guest
Album:Disney's Beauty and the Beast: Original Broadway Cast Recording
Gary Beach is a Broadway performer best known for winning a Tony for his performance in The Producers. He also originated the role of Lumiere in the 1994 production of Beauty and the Beast and was nominated for a Tony. Though it seems routine now, Beauty and the Beast was the first Disney animated film to be turned into a musical. Beach was born Oct. 10, 1947 in Alexandria, VA and moved to New York after graduating from the North Carolina School of the Arts. Beach has appeared in 1776, Annie, Doonesbury: A Musical Comedy and toured with Legends starring Carol Channing and Mary Martin. The idea to turn the 1991 film Beauty and the Beast into a musical was suggested by New York Times theater critic Frank Rich. Disney heads Michael Eisner and Jeffery Katzenberg decided to look into it and contacted Theater Under the Stars executive director Frank Young. The show premiered on Broadway Apr. 18, 1994 and ran for over five years. So it was a huge success and Disney has turned several of their animated films into musicals. Gary Beach was nominated for a Tony. His next big role was as Roger De Bris in The Producers. He won a Tony for that and played the role in the film. Beach has appeared in Broadway revivals of Les Miserables and La Cage Aux Folles and the national touring company of Spamalot. But his role in Beauty and the Beast was certainly significant. here's Gary Beach performing Be Our Guest in the 1995 Los Angeles production of Beauty and the Beast.
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