Broadway’s Belle at D23: “Michael Eisner Used to Call Me the Bag Lady”

Yesterday, D23 held a nearly hour-long panel for the 35th anniversary of Beauty and the Beast.

The panelists were Belle voice actress Paige O’Hara, original Broadway Belle Susan Egan, film producer Don Hahn, Belle animator Mark Henn, composer and songwriter Alan Menken, and current touring Belle Kyra Belle Johnson.

Susan Egan shared this amusing story:

So, Michael Eisner used to call me the bag lady because I had a basket and nobody else on stage, they they either couldn’t bend over or they didn’t have hands. So, whenever something fell like a prop, I would just in the middle of the scene go and get it, put it in my basket, and then at the end of the play, they would come find the props. Yeah. But it’s like poor Gary [Beach] had candlestick hands. Like there was nothing he could do. Then wear bed was like in a teapot costume also like yeah useless.