BWW Interviews: Stephanie Gray as Mrs. Potts from BEAUTY AND THE BEAST On Tour

Stephanie Gray has been enjoying the opportunity of playing the role of Mrs. Potts in the tour of BEAUTY AND THE BEAST. It's been a great opportunity for Gray to perform every night for enthusiastic audiences all over North America. BWW caught up with her recently and she shared many experiences with us.

How did you first get started in performing?

Gee, where do I begin? I can start as early as when I was a kid. All kids are trying to figure out what their place is, what they are meant to do, where you fit in. And my family and I would do this talent show on our family vacation with extended family, like aunts and uncles. My mom is one of like seven brothers and sisters. On the first year we went on family vacation in a big cabin together, we did a big family talent show and I was six. My cousin was a year younger than me and she stole the show. She sang "Somewhere over the Rainbow" and made her little stuffed dog bark and everyone laughed and everyone thought she was wonderful. I was just like "How do I do that? How do I make everyone laugh?" I stole the dog from her and I got up and sang "Colors of the Wind" from Pocahontas and tried to make the dog bark but nobody laughed. I joke around with my family that I have been trying to make people laugh ever since. I've always had this love and need for entertaining people. It may have started as early as then or like middle school or high school. That was the world in which I felt the most love and the most passion Going through high school and doing really great shows like "Le Mis" and getting the best feeling I ever had and I want to do this forever. It has always just kind of been there.

I studied vocal performance at Boston University. I kind of wanted to learn to sing correctly or with good technique while learning how to sing Opera and classical music. I always would kind of sneak away and do the theatre shows, the musical theatre. I always kind of had to feed that bug and after doing four years of training and doing a program called Seagle Music Colony in the Adirondacks where I furthered honed more classical training I sort of tried to take what I learned and apply it to musical theatre.

So, you branched out a lot and did a lot of different things and then you got the role of Mrs. Potts? Tell us about that process.

I did. Yeah. Absolutely, I can tell you clearly. It was audition season and I went to New York for ten days and it was the last audition that I had. I just said "Maybe this is it. Maybe this will be the thing that I book." I went in, I was one of the last people of the day and they asked me if I knew "Tale as Old as Time." And I said yeah but I was shocked. I was like, "You want to hear that? Yeah. That's pretty great." Then I did and they gave me a few coachings and I had a few coachings with the casting director, Bob Cline, and the associate director, Sam Scalamoni, and they were so wonderful and generous. It was the most lovely audition experience I ever had. About a month later, I did a final call back and got the role. It was a really wonderful audition process.

Were you in San Antonio when it came in the first time?

I wasn't. No. This is my first year touring. I have actually never been to Texas. I am actually kind of excited.

I know that the costume you wear is a little cumbersome, if that is a good way to put it. How is it to perform in that every night?

Honestly, I was just speaking to my colleague, Stephanie Gilmore about the costume today because she is the Wardrobe and we were both in the big costumes. I love my bubble. I love it so much. I think that the costume design is so smart. They warned me about how cumbersome it was going to be so I think that I was gearing myself up for it to be pretty difficult. I actually think that it is pretty fun. I have some problems every so often like popping through the set; like that it is going to get caught or something. For the most part, I love it and it is actually much light than you would think. I think once you put it on, you kind of figure out that it kind of brings you to that mindset that all of the objects in the castle have, like this impending doom, like this is real, I am a teapot and if we do not help solve this problem, I'm not going back. I love getting into that pot every day.

What do you do to prepare every evening before going on stage? Do you have certain things you do every night?

A lot of times, I get to sit in the dressing room with my fellow female objects, Melissa Jones who plays Babette and Stephanie who is playing the wardrobe. They are wonderful and I love talking to them. We build up a comradery together every night and the makeup helps. It is kind of like this nice, really zen hour of getting ready together with people you are sharing the stage with. One of the things I like is, once I get into the costume, I kind of creep backstage and watch the scene that I eventually enter into. I kind of like try to creep and watch the scene. I try to get into character and pretend I am watching what is going on in the castle and that I am going through it. That is a big help for figuring out like how to get into the mindset. Once you get all of the stuff on; the costume, the wig and the makeup, it is really easy just to fall into it.

If you had not gotten into show business, what do you think you would have done?

I think I would have been a dog walker. I have always had this dream. If this doesn't work out, I want to open a business walking dogs in central park called Balto's Beauties because the Balto statue is like my favorite thing in New York. I love animals and if I didn't have theatre, which I am so happy to be in theatre and this is what makes me happy every day doing this show, I couldn't be more lucky. If I didn't have that, I would have to encompass myself in animals probably, so something totally different.

Don't miss this tour of BEAUTY AND THE BEAST coming to San Antonio for just a couple of days. Tickets are available on www.majesticempire.com.

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