Mandy Bruno: Be Her Guest
“The opportunity to wear that yellow dress is one in a million,” beams GUIDING LIGHT’s Mandy Bruno (Marina) of her upcoming star turn as Belle in the Pittsburgh Civic Light Opera’s production of Disney’s Beauty and the Beast. “Every girl’s got that fairy tale that she watched, and Belle in Beauty and the Beast is huge for me. I love the character and the story. All of the music is really wonderful.
“I worked on a song, ‘Home,’ a lot in high school and college as an audition piece, and now I get to do it in the show!” reveals the actress, who holds a degree in musical theater. “It’s very exciting, beautiful music I can connect to. It’s going to be cool. It’s the biggest thing I’ve done, theater-wise.”
Bruno is equally enthusiastic about the lengths GL has gone to in order to accommodate her schedule. “I went to our executive producer, Ellen Wheeler, and had a conversation with her about my interest in the project,” she recounts. “It was important to me, but obviously GUIDING LIGHT is my No. 1 [priority]. She was very gracious.”
Still, Bruno acknowledges that balancing the two gigs will prove challenging. “It’s going to be tough,” she concedes. “There’s [going to be] a lot of flying back and forth to keep taping GL. I do [Beauty and the Beast] Tuesday through Sunday and fly out of Pittsburgh Sunday night. I tape [GL] Monday and Tuesday mornings and fly out Tuesday for a 7 o’clock [performance] Tuesday night.”
The advice of her GL co-stars has made the juggling act easier. “Robert Newman and Justin Deas (Josh and Buzz) have both worked [at the Pittsburgh CLO] quite a bit and have nothing but awesome things to say about the entire creative team there and the casts they bring in,” grins Bruno. “The theater itself is the second-largest theater in the country. It holds just under 3,000 people!”
Bruno appears in the production June 6-18 at the Benedum Center, located at Penn Avenue and 7th Street in Pittsburgh. For show times and tickets, call 412-456-6666 or e-mail mail@pittsburghclo.org.
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