Lehman and Inglesby Join the Cast of Beauty and the Beast

Disney's Beauty and the Beast will welcome two cast members – Jeanne Lehman as Mrs. Potts and Meredith Inglesby as Babette. Both actresses began performances this week.

Disney's Beauty and the Beast, currently in its 12th year on Broadway, features Ashley Brown as Belle, Steve Blanchard as the Beast, Ashley Brown as Belle, Grant Norman as Gaston, Peter Flynn as Lumiere, Jeff Brooks as Cogsworth, Jamie Ross as Maurice, Mary Stout as Madame de la Grande Bouche and Aldrin Gonzalez as Lefou. Trevor Braun and Alexander Scheitinger alternate the role of Chip. Alma Cuervo and Pam Klinger currently play Mrs. Potts and Babette, respectively.

The show features Alan Menken's and the late Howard Ashman's Academy Award-winning score (with the added song "Human Again"), plus songs written especially for the stage by Alan Menken and Tim Rice (including "If I Can't Love Her" and "A Change In Me"). The show's book is by Linda Woolverton, author of the original screenplay. Beauty and the Beast is choreographed by Matt West and directed by Robert Jess Roth; sets are by Stan Meyer, costumes by Ann Hould-Ward, and lighting by Natasha Katz.

Lehman was last seen on Broadway as "Mother Abbess" in Sound of Music with Richard Chamberlain. Credits include: Irene (B'way), Beauty and the Beast (Mrs. Potts, LA), Hello Dolly (Mrs. Molloy) with Carol Channing, 2001 Stratford Festival of Canada, performing as Julie Andrews' standby in Putting it Together (MTC), Applause (Eve) with Lauren Bacall, My Fair Lady (Eliza), King and I (Anna), Music Man (Marion), and dozens more. Inglesby was last seen in the national tour of Disney's On the Record; regional credits include Eliza Doolittle in My Fair Lady, Diana Morales in A Chorus Line and Roxie Hart in Chicago.

Beauty and the Beast "is the classic love story of Belle, a young woman in a small, provincial town, and the Beast, who is really a prince trapped in a spell placed on him by an enchantress. If the Beast can learn to love and to be loved, the spell will be broken and he will be transformed back to his former self. But time is running out, and if the Beast does not learn his lesson soon, he will be doomed for all eternity." The musical opened on Broadway at the Palace Theatre in 1994, where it played more than 2,250 performances; it became the longest-running show ever to play that theatre. Beauty and the Beast, now also the longest running tenant in the history of the Lunt-Fontanne Theatre, is Broadway's longest running American musical and the 6th longest-running show of all time.

The performance schedule for Disney's Beauty and the Beast at the Lunt-Fontanne Theatre (205 West 46th Street) is as follows: Tuesday - Thursday at 7pm, Friday at 8pm, Saturday at 2pm and 8pm, and Sunday at 2pm and 7:30pm. For tickets and information, please call Ticketmaster at (212) 307-4747. Visit Disney Theatrical Productions online at www.disneyonbroadway.com. Brown's online diary can be found at the following link.