Fogbow

'Phantom of the Opera' takes a final Broadway bow after 13,981 performances

On Sunday night, April 16, the curtain will fall on the longest-running show in Broadway history. The Phantom of the Opera, Andrew Lloyd Webber's mega hit musical, is closing after more than 35 years.

The stats are absolutely staggering – since it opened on Broadway in January of 1988, Phantom has played almost 14,000 performances to audiences of over 20 million, grossing over $1.3 billion. An estimated 6,500 people have been employed by the production – including over 400 actors – and it takes a cast, orchestra and crew of 125 to put on the show. On Monday, it will all be over.

"I got the gig of a lifetime. There's no other way to describe it," says Richard Poole, who's been a member of the ensemble, playing small roles, for almost 25 years. "It's given me the ability to have security, to plan ahead," says Poole. "It gives me discipline and structure in my life, and it gives me a constant way to maintain my craft."

But even the longest running show in Broadway history has to close at some point. Producer Cameron Mackintosh says Phantom was losing money, even before the pandemic. So, last September, he and Andrew Lloyd Webber announced a final date. "The following week, we were profitable for the first time," Mackintosh said in a phone interview from London. "So, you know, it was the right decision to take at the right time. And, you know, I think people's memory now is back with people saying Phantom of the Opera is one of the great successes of all time, which is what one always prays when a great show finishes."

So, Phantom is going out with a bang – it's been selling out again. Music supervisor and conductor David Caddick has been around since the very beginning – he was music director for a staged reading on Andrew Lloyd Webber's estate back in 1984. He's conducting the final performances on Broadway. "I simply don't know how I'll feel on the morning of the 17th of April," Caddick says. "At the moment, it's about maintaining what we have: keeping the show vibrant. I still give notes to the actors, to the orchestra. We will look to maintain every element of the production through to the very last note."

There are plans for some surprises at the final curtain call. Actor Richard Poole says the closing is bittersweet. "I was retiring anyway," he says. "So, I have a very enviable spot in my life in the fact that I had something to go to, which was nothing!" For the other 124 people employed by The Phantom of the Opera, it's time to find a new gig.

Chevalier review – neglected 18th-century Black virtuoso finally gets his due
Kelvin Harrison Jr plays the Caribbean-born maestro, once declared ‘the most accomplished man in Europe’, who takes on Mozart in a duel-by-violin

Ellen E Jones
Wed 7 Jun 2023 09.00 BST

Period drama’s narrow focus on telling and re-telling the same stories has, historically at least, deprived audiences of some rip-roaring screen fare. That’s now changing, as evidenced by this film about 18th-century Parisian polymath Joseph Bologne AKA Chevalier de Saint-Georges. As played by Kelvin Harrison Jr, this fascinating fellow escaped a Caribbean slave plantation – his mother was a Senegalese-African woman; his father her enslaver – to reach the highest echelons of French society. There he excelled as a champion fencer, composer and virtuoso violinist, described by US founding father John Adams as “the most accomplished man in Europe”.



https://www.theguardian.com/film/2023/j ... ts-his-due

Rediscovered: the long-lost script that helped The Great Gatsby become a classic
F Scott Fitzgerald’s novel was a flop until a 1926 staging became a Broadway smash

Dalya Alberge
Sat 23 Mar 2024 14.00 CET

It is the quintessential novel of the hedonistic jazz age, a roaring 20s story about the mysteriously wealthy Jay Gatsby and his love for the beautiful Daisy Buchanan. The Great Gatsby became an enduring classic, inspiring films and musicals, but received such mixed reviews in 1925 that its disappointed author, F Scott Fitzgerald, was all the more excited when it inspired a Broadway adaptation.

The 1926 dramatisation by Owen Davis, a Pulitzer prizewinner, opened to rave reviews and became a hit that contributed to the novel’s success, bringing Fitzgerald substantial royalties and fame.

But the original script had long since been lost. Now a copy has been rediscovered and will be published for the first time by Cambridge University Press – and it reveals that Davis took many liberties with Fitzgerald’s storyline.

An early stage adaptation of The Great Gatsby. Photograph: Princeton University Library
Nick Carraway is no longer the narrator, new characters are invented, and Jay Gatsby’s past, which is revealed gradually throughout the novel, is presented all at once near the start. “Davis made some interesting changes,” said Anne Margaret Daniel, co-editor of the new publication. “He introduces some of the gangster characters who are in Gatsby’s underworld. He makes it very clear that Gatsby is in the business of organised crime, which is an apt reading of the book and, of course, it makes it more dramatic on stage.



https://www.theguardian.com/books/2024/ ... -a-classic

sad-cafe wrote: ↑Sun Dec 17, 2023 1:26 pm I have been really into Hamilton lately.

I show it to my 8th graders every year and this summer we saw the traveling production in our city.

Oh how I wish I had been able to see the original cast in New York

keith wrote: ↑Wed Mar 27, 2024 5:52 am

sad-cafe wrote: ↑Sun Dec 17, 2023 1:26 pm I have been really into Hamilton lately.

I show it to my 8th graders every year and this summer we saw the traveling production in our city.

Oh how I wish I had been able to see the original cast in New York

We lucked out the last time we were in the states. We caught Hamilton in Chicago. No idea how the Chicago cast was carried over from New York.

northland10 wrote: ↑Wed Mar 27, 2024 7:26 am It was a sit down show (I think that's the term, i.e. a long-term engagement, not a national touring show) so it would have had it's own cast like the Broadway, West End, and however many tours they had going on.

bob wrote: ↑Wed Mar 27, 2024 4:33 pm

northland10 wrote: ↑Wed Mar 27, 2024 7:26 am It was a sit down show (I think that's the term, i.e. a long-term engagement, not a national touring show) so it would have had it's own cast like the Broadway, West End, and however many tours they had going on.

Exactly: The Chicago production was its own beast; it ran from 2016 and closed in January 2020 (as the pandemic shutdowns were looming).

The B'way and West End productions are still happening.

Whatever4 wrote: ↑Sat Mar 23, 2024 10:09 pm For those in the other Portland, the one in Oregon, the Portland State University’s Opera program is putting on The Merry Widow. Starring my adopted godchild and soon to be famous March Steiger. April 19-28. https://www.pdx.edu/music-theater/merry-widow

I might fly out to attend, depends on Things. But if you are in the area and enjoy theater/opera, it’s a winner. (March was Queen of the Night in last year’s Magic Flute. Spectacular aria.)

much ado wrote: ↑Wed Mar 27, 2024 6:47 pm

Whatever4 wrote: ↑Sat Mar 23, 2024 10:09 pm (March was Queen of the Night in last year’s Magic Flute. Spectacular aria.)

The aria...

Portland State University Magic Flute 4/29/23 Sun Cast

Whatever4 wrote: ↑Thu Mar 28, 2024 3:06 am Amazing, eh? That’s a farm kid from Maine!