Ann Hould-Ward's costumes give 'Disney's Beauty and the Beast

[Kate McGirr]

Before anybody sings a note or speaks a word in "Disney's Beauty and the Beast," which runs Dec. 29 through Jan. 3 at theSaenger Theatre, there is the look to be reckoned with. And that look belongs to Ann Hould-Ward.

As costume designer for the original 1994 Broadway production -- an assignment that won her the Tony Award for Best Costume Design – Hould-Ward managed the considerable feat of rebirthing imagery from the 1991 Disney animated film to the live stage. Call it a translation from the fanciful to the practical, from two dimensions to three, from pure imagination to the light and grit of theater.

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The show, which is been touring nationally for much of the last six years, is coming to New Orleans as part of the Broadway in New Orleans 2015-16 season.

Parents of young children, who may well have been in the audience when the movie version first came to the screen, will now have the opportunity to indulge in a bit of visual nostalgia.

Still, the current production is no mere retread. Hould-Ward has taken care to honor the aesthetic imperative that defined the original "Beauty and the Beast," intent on ensuring that new viewers appreciate what makes this piece so wondrous.

"We all want to fulfill what the director sees as our vision," Hould-Ward said during a phone interview from her New York City studio. "We all want to be the next cog in that machine that starts to make what that vision is. I guess the magic of it is when you can look at it later and feel that you all did put together a really beautiful vision. I would say that 'Beauty,' in all the companies we've had the great good fortune to do around the world, has brought the magic of that story."

Before the magic, however, came the planning – lots of it. From the delicate folds of Belle's dress to the specific texture of the Beast's fur, the tipsy curvaceous of Mrs. Potts to the flammable exclamations of Lumiere, the visual identity of every character had to be conceived, sketched constructed and fitted. It was a process that began in the brain, moved to the fingers, finally ending up with actors moving across a stage.

By the time she was hired to design the costumes for the original Broadway production, Hould-Ward had already established herself as one of the leading costumers of her generation. Born in rural Montana, educated at Mills College and the University of Virginia, she apprenticed under the legendary costume designer Patricia Zipprodt -- sharing a Tony Award nomination for the 1984 Broadway production of Stephen Sondheim's "Sunday in the Park with George." Many successes followed, including forays into dance and opera (not to mention new clothes for the latest iteration of Ronald McDonald).

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