Area Stage Company attended the 45th Annual Carbonell Awards on November 7th. Beauty and the Beast took home the most Carbonell Awards for a production this year, with Area Stage receiving the second most awards as a company overall. Giancarlo’s wins for both Outstanding Direction and Outstanding Production of a Musical make him the youngest director in Carbonell history to receive these honors. The cast performed a rousing medley of the production’s most memorable songs, to roaring applause and high praise from audience members.

Area Stage Company (ASC) has been around a long time – first established in 1989 by John and Maria Rodaz in Miami Beach. The professional theater company and conservatory subsequently had 12 exciting years at the Riviera Theatre in South Miami and now makes a black box space and new studio their home at Sunset Place.

So, what suddenly makes Area Stage the theater to watch? It’s their son’s directorial forte in reconfiguring established material to present it in an entirely new light – something he’s getting the opportunity to do in a much more high-profile venue at the Adrienne Arsht Center.

Fierce, chameleon-like and attention-grabbing, actor and singer Imran Hylton has impressed audiences with his versatility of characters, from militant straight to gaudy drag.

Hylton discovered an interest in performing at age 12 thanks to drama club. Since then, his passion has led him to perform with various theatrical companies including Loxen Productions, Robert Russell Theater and Miami New Drama. He has worked with Area Stage Company (ASC) for nearly two years, and in that short time has caught the eye of theatergoers in Miami.

I thought I was done with Beauty and the Beast.

Having experienced two or three regional productions of the Academy Award-winning film-turned-stage musical, I assumed it was one of those contemporary warhorses that precluded individualistic interpretation. You know the shows—ubiquitous crowd-pleasers like Mamma Mia! and Avenue Q—that are so driven by audience expectations that deviation from the brand is all but unthinkable. In the same way, how could any production of Beauty and the Beast approach the material with a fundamentally new vision without, to borrow some political argot, alienating the base?

“Harry Potter and the Cursed Child” took immersion to a different level on Broadway in 2018. Now enter the Area Stage Company version of Disney’s “Beauty and the Beast.”

The show is performing to nearly sold-out crowds at Miami’s Adrienne Arsht Center for the Performing Arts in its Carnival Studio Theater, currently transformed by set designer Frank Oliva into an amalgamation of a French medieval castle and a small-town 16th-century pub, where dancing on the tables takes on a whole new meaning.