Beast of Burden

In September, the Stuart-Hobson drama department announced that they would be staging Beauty and the Beast for its fall musical and Owen announced that he wouldn't be acting in a Disney-based play. Knowing how much he regretted not performing in the spring's, Alice in Wonderland, we urged Owen to change his mind, but instead Owen, for the second time, ran the sound board for all four performances (while singing along to every musical number).

It was a pretty impressive staging with especially strong performances from the seventh grade class, which was particularly touching since we've known Belle (Alice), Gaston (Hayden) and LeFou (Adam) since pre-K, plus Lumiere (Patrick) and Cogsworth (Han) since third grade (we've also known the Beast (Owen B) since daycare, but he's only a sixth grader). Like so many middle-school productions, it wasn't entirely clear if they would pull it off (I think even Ms. Purgason was worried as tweens are not the most dependable demographic), but they all worked really hard and in the end it really was an amazing show.

And hopefully, the performance convinced Owen to emerge from the shadows of crew and back into the bright light of the stage, regardless of its origins.

(To see all the pictures, click here.)