Ida S. Baker High performing ‘Beauty and the Beast’ medley at 2024 HSMTA
The High School Musical Theatre Awards take place at 7:00 p.m. on Thursday, May 9 at the Barbara B Mann Performing Art Hall at FSW. Started in 2008 by Barbara Mann GM Scott Saxson, the High School Musical Theatre Awards celebrate local high school actors, orchestras, their musical productions and the hard work those students do every year. Among the eight area schools taking part in the Awards this year is Ida S. Baker High School, which presented Disney’s Beauty and the Beast during the last weekend of April.
It’s a tale as old as time, true as it can be. Barely even friends, somebody bends, unexpectedly. And the students who performed Beauty and the Beast did an exceptional job at bringing the infamous fairytale to 
life.
Based on the smash 1991 Disney animated feature and dating back to a late 18th-century classic French fairy tale, Beauty and the Beast tells the story of Belle, a beautiful and intelligent young woman who feels out of place in her provincial French village. When her father is imprisoned in a mysterious castle, Belle’s attempt to rescue him leads to her capture by the Beast, a grisly and fearsome monster trapped in his gruesome form by an enchantress a long time ago. The only way for the Beast to become human once again is if he learns to love and be loved in return. But there is a time limit on this possibility. Once a magical rose loses all of its petals, all hope will be lost and he will stay a Beast forever. 
The Beast’s enchanted household–populated by such beloved characters as Mrs. Potts, Lumiere, Cogsworth and Chip–watch anxiously as Belle and the Beast grow to understand and befriend one another. Their feelings grow ever deeper as the clock ticks and petals continue to fall off the enchanted rose. Will they confess their love for one another before it is too late?
“This particular cast was senior heavy, and many of them closed out their last year of high school by displaying their incredible talents to some of the largest audiences IBHS has seen throughout the last four years,” notes Directors Sarah Jones and Steven Michael Kennedy.
Now, 
IBHS brings a medley of songs from Beauty and the Beast to the 2024 High School Musical Theatre Awards.
“This musical was truly a collaborative masterpiece for our school’s theatre program and will definitely be remembered as one of the best of IBHS,” Jones and Kennedy add.
Ida S. Baker High School offers a medley of courses in which students can study and learn various elements of theater, musical theater and technical theater throughout all four years of high school.
Also participating in this year’s HSMTA are Bishop Verot High School, Canterbury School, Cypress Lake High School, Island Coast High School, 
Lehigh Senior High School, North Fort Myers High School and Oasis High School.
May 8, 2024.
About the Author
Tom Hall is both an amateur artist and aspiring novelist who writes art quest thrillers. He is in the final stages of completing his debut novel titled "Art Detective," a story that fictionalizes the discovery of the fabled billion-dollar Impressionist collection of Parisian art dealer Josse Bernheim-Jeune, thought by many to have perished during World War II when the collection's hiding place, Castle de Rastignac in southern France, was destroyed by the Wehrmacht in reprisal for attacks made by members of the Resistance operating in the area. A former tax attorney, Tom holds a bachelor's degree as well as both a juris doctorate and masters of laws in taxation from the University of Florida. Tom lives in Estero, Florida with his fiancee, Connie, and their four cats.