The final preparations begin tonight for the Musical Theater of Orange County’s production of Disney’s Beauty & the Beast at the beautiful Nechita Center for the Performing Arts, in Orange, California. Opening night is Friday, July 23rd, but tonight is the beginning of “Tech Week” as the MTOC “Crew Monkeys” (of which I am a proud volunteer member) begin to ‘load in’ and assemble the massive production set that we’ve been building for the past few months.

My son, Michael Burrell, a sophomore at Orange Lutheran High School and veteran of numerous musical theater productions, is cast in the role of Lumiere. This is a role he has played once before garnering outstanding reviews. I can’t wait to see his performance with the MTOC.

This is will be a great show with a talented cast and a wonderful family experience for those who attend. We have several participants from the ‘Disney family’ included as directors, technical production crew and current and former cast members to bring the “Disney Magic” to our production.

This is the full-length musical theater production of Disney’s Beauty & the Beast as presented on Broadway, not an abbreviated version that may have been seen at the Disneyland Theme parks. If you are in the greater Orange County area for the next two weeks, you should add this event to your schedule. It will be an enjoyable evening or afternoon (matinees on Sunday!) for those who enjoy the wonder of live theater!

I’ll be posting some photos along the way to show how we’re doing. Anyway, that’s all for now and I’m off to the theater!