BWW Preview: Shrek Meets Fantasia in New Take on CINDERELLA at PASA

CINDERELLA'S MAKEOVER, which has its world premiere at Performing Arts San Antonio (PASA) opening June 10, presents a Shrek-like version of the Cinderella story with music from some of the world's greatest classical composers.

Like the classic Disney movie Fantasia, which remains one of the most enduringly popular Disney movies, the show aims to introduce classical music to people who might not generally come into contact with such music.

In this version, Cinderella doesn't marry the prince because he is too obsessed with the size of her feet as he tries to get her to try on a glass slipper that the magician Merlin has told him will fit the girl he is to marry.

Instead of a fairy godmother, Cinderella (played by Lauren Cole) has a fairy godfather (played by Jef Maldonado, who played Cedric E De Ville in PASA's recent staging of "Make Me a Musical"). He brings in a team of stylists who give her makeover and then introduces her to a handsome courtier named Horatio, who rescues her after her evil stepmother sells her to some slave traders (whose trademark is "Slaves 'R' Us").

The music is adapted taken from a raft of popular classics by composers Leo Delibes, Mozart, Jules Massenet, Carl Maria von Weber, Luigi Boccherini, Edvard Grieg, Josef Haydn, Felix Mendelssohn, Frederic Chopin, Camille St Saens and Bedrich Smetana.

Smetana's famous "Moldau" - considered by many to be one of the finest orchestral tone poems that musically charts the course of the Moldau River - becomes a song entitled "My Heart Has Learned to Soar" (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pjxyi5tOcOM). Haydn's Surprise Symphony becomes "Where Did Cinderella Go?" (www.youtube.com/watch?v=JPg4g1z3Lnk)

The show is directed by Vaughn Taylor and features Douglass Hooker as Horatio, Iyana Colby as the evil stepmother, Logan Magoun and Stephanie Clark as the stepsisters (the evil trio is shown in the photo here, with Iyana Colby in the center, Logan Magoun on the right and Stephanie Clarke on the left.) Luis Garza plays the prince.

The show runs for three weekends from June 10. The theatre is now offering assigned seating so early booking is advised to get the seats you want. Telephone the theatre on (210) 557 1187. Seats can also be bought online at http://www.brownpapertickets.com/event/2502011.

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