When a performer exited "110 in the Shade" about a week before performances were scheduled to begin, Jones sent in a video audition. Let's just make casting real body types the norm." Olivera thinks that performer size should be a non-issue: "The more people of all sizes see themselves represented on stage, the less stigma is attached to size, the better off everyone is. Interestingly, the female romantic lead in that show, Tracy Lynn Olivera, was also larger than the typical size 2. Once upon a time…Īfter Dodge was invited to direct the production, she knew she was uninterested in telling the story in the same way it’s been told for the last 30 years: “The first thing I did was read the script and think, ‘How do I smuggle some deeper meaning to this tale as old as time?’” Her husband, writer Tony Dodge, immediately suggested that Jones play Belle.ĭodge and Jones had previously worked together in a 2016 production of “110 in the Shade” at Ford’s Theatre in Washington, DC.
Know Your Value recently spoke with Jones and Dodge about what it’s like to put a modern spin on a beloved story. It was so apparent to me that it was long overdue to celebrate body types of all sizes.”
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It was to me a thrill of learning how to navigate the story in this retelling. Walt Disneyĭodge said that when she offered Jones the starring role, “it just completely threw her for a loop that a queer, plus-size, curvy, dark-skinned Black woman was going to play a classic Disney princess. So little girls can dream big about them being princesses, too.” Belle in the animated version of "Beauty and the Beast" and Emma Watson as Belle. “And it’s not just a Black Belle who fits into the size 2 replica dress, but a plus-size Belle. “Little Black girls in the audience screamed out, ‘Is that Belle?’” Dodge recounted. After the cast sang about the most beautiful girl in town during the opening number, Jones stepped on stage.
The production’s Tony Award-nominated director, Marcia Milgrom Dodge, said Jones’s presence has made an impact on the audience from the very beginning.
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