BEAUTY AND THE BEAST Comes to Lewis Family Playhouse Next Month

Inland Pacific Ballet will present Disney’s Beauty and the Beast next month. Based on the Academy Award-winning animated feature, this stage version includes all of the songs written by Alan Menken and the late Howard Ashman, including the beloved title song “Be Our Guest” along with new songs by Mr. Menken and Tim Rice. This special presentation will take place at the Lewis Family Playhouse in Rancho Cucamonga for six performances only on Saturday, March 2 and 9 at 2 p.m. and 7:30 p.m. and Sunday March 3 and 10 at 2 p.m. 

When the beloved Candlelight Pavilion Dinner Theater in Claremont closed after a successful 37 years of pairing Broadway musicals with dinner, Candlelight Pavilion General Manager Mick Bollinger let the public know that while they seek a new home in the Inland Empire, Candlelight is returning to producing major shows in 2024 by joining forces with Montclair’s Inland Pacific Ballet. 

Candlelight’s late founder Ben D. Bollinger was a choral director and dean of performing arts at Citrus College in Glendora. He created the Citrus Singers, which performed throughout the region in the 1970s and continues today. Bollinger opened the Candlelight Pavilion in 1985. The space featured chandeliers, group tables with linen tablecloths on the first floor and private dining rooms upstairs. It has been almost two years since Candlelight Pavilion, a much-loved dinner theater venue, closed the doors of its long-time Claremont location. 

“This is the first time the IPB and Candlelight artistic teams are partnering to bring together the best dancers and finest artistic talent for a joint production,” explains Zaylin Cano, Executive Director, Inland Pacific Ballet. “Longtime Candlelight Pavilion fans are eager to enjoy top notch musical theater once again at a local venue, and we feel audiences will really respond to a new, refreshing take on this fairytale story that brings together Disney’s memorable music and songs combined with a hint of classical ballet in the choreography.

The cast is comprised of Inland Pacific Ballet professional Company members along with beloved artists from past Candlelight Pavilion productions, and artists selected by audition. In addition, the cast is supported by IPB Academy Apprentices/Trainees and students from the IPB Academy musical theater training program, which provides a platform for young people to experience firsthand the professional elements of putting on musical theater performances.  

Starring Lissette Garrido as Belle (recent credits include The Little Mermaid (Ariel), West Side Story (Maria), and Hello Dolly (Principal Dancer), and traveled the world performing in Germany, China, and New York City where she made her Off-Broadway debut); Jonathan Sharp as Beast (trained at National Academy of the Arts and the School of American Ballet, the official school of the New York City Ballet; danced professionally with the Boston Ballet, the Pennsylvania Ballet, and the touring Stars of American Ballet, headlined by Robert LaFosse and Darci Kistler; on Broadway in the original casts of The Red Shoes, Carousel (1994 Tony winner for Best Revival), The Rocky Horror Show Live, The Dance of the Vampires, and Fiddler on the Roof; He has also appeared on television as a contract player on Another World and guest-starred on Law and Order and Gilmore Girls. He has taught at Idyllwild Arts Academy for sixteen years, and also teaches and directs internationally, Inland Pacific Ballet in many capacities over the last 20 years including principal dancer, choreographer, Ballet Master and Associate Director; John LaLonde as Lumière (performed and directed in many Candlelight Pavilion shows including Aida, Annie Get Your Gun, Brigadoon, Bye Bye Birdie, Cabaret, Carousel, Damn Yankees, The Drowsy Chaperone, Evita, 42nd Street, Grease, Guys & Dolls, I Do, I Do, Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat, Kismet, La Cage aux Folles, Man of La Mancha, The Music Man, My Fair Lady, Oklahoma, The Pajama Game, Phantom, Ragtime, Seven Brides for Seven Brothers, The Sound of Music, and Sweeney Todd); Allen Everman as Cogsworth (shared the Candlelight Pavilion stage for over 20 years and has musically directed over 60 musicals throughout SoCal and is a member of the Citrus College music faculty); Debbie Prutsman as Mrs. Potts (known across the southland and the east coast for her work in the musical theater world, having performed leading roles at many of the major theatres from LA to San Diego and beyond).

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