“BEAUTY AND THE BEAST” INVITES YOU TO "BE OUR GUEST"

Come open the fairy tale book that features a sweet maiden and the monster who frightens the little village where she lives.

As fairy tales go, “Beauty and the Beast” is one of the enchanted best.  Belle, a luminous Hilary Malberger, is a lovely lass who would enjoy reading her precious books from dawn to dusk, as long as she doesn’t have to fend off the affections of the vain and egotistical Gaston, the tower of vanity Tim Rogan, who imagines himself to be a desirable gift to womankind.

Meanwhile in a castle in the forest, an enchantress, for displeasing her,

has cast a handsome prince into a hideous beast.  Only a love that is pure and true can release him from his spell, and only before the last petal falls from a bewitched rose. Time is running out and he and his household will be cursed for all eternity.  The Beast is cloaked in the persona of Darick Pead.

Enter the fascinating musical and magical world of Disney’s “Beauty and the Beast” waltzing into the Hartford’s Bushnell Center for the Performing Arts for eight performances, May 6-11, Tuesday, Thursday and Friday at 7 p.m., Wednesday at 10:30 a.m. and 7 p.m., Saturday at 10:30 a.m. and 4 p.m. and Sunday at 2 p.m.

Follow the brave heroine Belle hoping to rescue her father Maurice who, after getting lost in the woods, sought shelter at the castle of the Beast and becomes his prisoner.  The angry Beast, who guards his privacy, locks her father, an inventor, in a dungeon.

Belle discovers the castle and a troop of unlikely helpers in Lumiere the candelabra, Mrs. Potts the teapot, her son Chip the teacup and Cogsworth the clock.  To free her father, Belle offers to stay in the castle with the Beast if he will just let her father go home.  In a wild adventure, Belle and her father escape, Gaston and the villagers attack the castle, the Beast is grievously wounded and Belle learns the meaning of true love.

For tickets ($19 and up), call the Bushnell, 160 Capitol Avenue, Hartford at 860-987-5900 or online at www.bushnell.org.

Discover for yourself how the magic spell is broken, how the enchanted objects become human again and how “happily ever after” is the way all fairy tales are supposed to end.