Due to a last-minute change of venue, the Project did not take place in the newly-completed Caliber Fortress as planned. Instead, actors and audience found themselves crammed like sardines into the "intimate" setting of Desert Impulse, a "bachelor entertainment venue" in Phoenix. The play chosen for bastardization was the Disney classic Beauty and the Beast. Taking songs from the Broadway production and diologue from the DVD put the audience through fifty percent more torture than they would otherwise have been forced to endure.
The idea was brilliant, but the singing and acting fell far short of expectation. Here are some of the casting mistakes made by producers Desmoda Grace and Lebre Tyson:
- Usagi den Huisdier as Prince Iason-- He may sing the Beast's lament with fervor and torment, but casting a vocally-challenged prettyboy as a hideous beast is a collossal error even a lout like Tyson should know to avoid. It's as bad as trying to cast Albert Einstein as the title character in Zoolander.
- Illybrius Falcon as the Haughty Tiktok-- Clearly it's his accent, not his acting, that got him the part. Or is this another example of Desmoda's morbid humor? There's no denying he's a quick study- lost his memory and still memorized all his lines- but the delivery was bull snot. Lesson: Don't cast eternal youth as a Wall Street stockbroker.
- Desmoda Grace as Mrs. Potts-- That had to be a sick joke because the woman can't even pretend to have a maternal bone in her body. Rosemary could have done better. I expected more from the Mistress of a Thousand Faces, even if she did land the part by default.
- Oleander Swallow as Belle-- Take a look at the video just below. Imagine the singer in white as the original Belle and the singer in black as Oleander's interpretation. Horrid, isn't it?
The patrons who did not run screaming from Desert Impulse must be more tone-deaf than Usagi's and Oleander's theoretical love child. Beauty and the Beast? Try Harlot and the Queer. Whoever said gay men were good singers on principle was seriously confused, and audience members at the Project who belived it got a rude awakening.
I only speak the truth.
