Beauty and the Beast
The true life love story of a born freak and a beauty queen. Beauty and the Beast was first performed as a work-in-progress at the Extravagant Bodies Disability Arts Festival in Zagreb 2008/9 and this loose and the wild version continued to tour disability arts festivals worldwide eliciting standing ovations at every show. In 2012, Muz & Fraser approached Phelim McDermott to direct and help fully realize the potential of this electrifying show. Muz & Fraser still get stopped on the street with audience members telling them how much they loved Beauty and the Beast.
★★★★ "Dangerous, playful, eliciting screams of scandalised laughter."
–The Times (London)
Beauty and the Beast
Presented by ONEOFUS in Co-Production with Improbable
Directed by Phelim McDermott
Starring Julie Atlas Muz, Mat Fraser, and puppeteers Jonny Dixon and Jess Mabel Jones
Assistant Director: Caroline Williams
Set Designer: Philip Eddolls
Costume Designer: Kevin Pollard
Sound Designer: Ed Clarke
Production Manager: Mishi Bekesi
Stage Manager: Neelam Vaswani
“ ‘Beauty and the Beast’ A priceless bedtime story for grown-ups. Playing both the fairy-tale characters of the title and their real selves are Julie Atlas Muz and Mat Fraser, spouses who met while working in a sideshow on Coney Island. Directed by Phelim McDermott, these two deliver their own remarkable, love-struck and sweetly pornographic idea of the uses of enchantment.”
— Ben Brantley of the NEW YORK TIMES
“What a privilege to be a part of this theatrical sorcery. From that moment, your heart is on the stage — if it weren’t already — with Beauty, Beast, and their portrayers. It’s a leap that feels an awful lot like falling in love.”
— Ben Brantley of the new york times
Photo by Karl Giant
“But in telling the parallel stories of Ms. Muz and Mr. Fraser and their archetypal, centuries-old characters, this “Beauty and the Beast” is infused with an all-accepting innocence. And it speaks to perhaps the only moments in our adult lives when we truly believe in magical fairy-tale transformations — those times when we’re drunk with new love, and the only prospect you can see is that of happily-ever-after-dom.”
— Ben Brantley of the new york times
