From the Director…
Bonjour and Welcome! Thank you for visiting our enchanted castle and supporting the Performing Arts at Vermilion High School. I cannot imagine a more perfect musical to present to our community than Beauty and the Beast. The cast, crew, musicians, and production staff have worked tirelessly together to bring this fairytale to life and I am so proud of each and every person involved. Their level of hard work, endurance, maturity and dedication has been exceptional and I am so blessed to have the opportunity to work with them.
Beauty and the Beast is my absolute favorite Disney movie. I am so honored to be given the gift to direct not only my favorite story, but to do so with all my favorite people. A filled bookshelf is art to me. The books tease us to pull one of them from the shelf to read. Many of the stories are fairytales that have endured for many years, such as the story you’re watching today. Although the books are inanimate, they are filled with life. Storybooks and fairytales lure us in with fantasy, adventure and romance, but it seems to be the moral questions and lessons that each tale weaves that bring us back to the story again and again. They are neither historical nor contemporary, but ever present in our everyday life.
To our seniors, you have been with me from the beginning of your acting career at VHS. From your very first production of It’s A Wonderful Life to Beauty and the Beast, I have been so incredibly proud of you. I am going to miss you so very much and your absence next year on the stage will be felt by all. I sincerely hope that you have been able to take it all in and appreciate every moment from the past couple months as well as the years spent performing here at Vermilion High School. I hope that you savor your successes both on and off stage and that you have learned to keep striving to do your best regardless of the situation. As you ready yourselves for the next chapter in your lives, please take this memory and experience with you so you always have a way to look back. But in looking back, make sure to always pursue the adventure waiting for you in that great wide somewhere.
I am so proud of all our students and the endless hours they have spent to make this production a success. Thank you to the community for supporting these young people and all of our Performing Arts at Vermilion High School. Thank you to our business sponsors and our patrons for supporting us financially and we encourage everyone to in turn, support them as our community is only stronger together. A special thanks to our Vermilion Choral Boosters as they support every aspect of our musical production. Without them we could not bring this production to life.
Now… we invite you to sit back and relax as we begin our tale with four simple words that I find, when put together, are truly magical in their ability to ignite imagination, enthrall senses, excite emotions and open the pages to so much possibility.
And so, we begin: Once upon a time…
Magically,
Kim Judd
VHS Drama Director
