How Did You Become a Phan?

Thought of calling this topic, "Remember Your First Time" but I think a lot of us hated those promos that used that tag line.

I think that back on Phansonline there was a thread where people posted how they first were introduced to the musical or the story itself. I thought it might be interesting to bring that topic back. Especially since some of us weren't on the old site.

For me I was catching up on school work after a bunch of surgeries. On TV was the inaugural celebration for President George Bush senior. I was just a kid and had no clue about politics so I'm not even sure why I had it on.

Anyhow they had Michael Crawford and Dale Kristien on with an abbreviated MOTN. I had never heard of Phantom in any form, Leroux, Webber, nothing, nadda but when Michael struck his pose as the Phantom as the opening notes of the Overture played I was instantly spellbound. I didn't move an inch. I don't even know if I was breathing. I've been a fan ever since.

I've been wishing to track down that program as I wanted to be able to have that as a souvenir but never can even find it on YouTube. And it's not exactly something that will air again on TV.

A week ago I found one available and today it arrived in the mail. I was just as spellbound watching it today as I was on that date when I first saw it. January 19, 1989.... Exactly 21 years to the date! I guess this makes it my Phanniversary.

It was 1991 for me, I was but four years old. My mom left the LP album of the OLC sitting out, I thought the pictures were neat and scary, I said "Oh whats this", so she played it for me, and the rest is history. Happy Phanniversary, MasqPhan .

I love topics like this!

I have to preface by saying that, as a little girl, I went to a lot of musicals...some tours, some local shows. So I grew up seeing productions of Peter Pan, Annie, Camelot, etc. So I was already favorably inclined towards musicals in general.

So, it was 1988...springtime, to be exact. I was in eighth grade and it was a Friday with a half-day schedule for some sort of teacher meeting. Rather than start a new lesson on a short day, my English teacher got the record player out of the closet and put on a new album she'd brought from home. The cover was black with a mask and a rose...it was this musical that had just opened on Broadway...The Phantom of the Opera.

I was hooked from the first notes of the Overture. By the time we got to "The Music of The Night," I was in love with this musical. When my great-aunt picked me up from school that day, I immediately DEMANDED (and I wasn't usually such a brat) to be driven to Stuyvesant Plaza. The music store there always had an excellent selection of Broadway albums. Once there, I demanded an advance on my allowance to buy it.

It didn't take long for me to wear that album out. Over the years, I went through quite a few copies...first vinyl, then cassettes, eventually CDs. I have fond memories of rushing from a school car wash - with my clothes and hair still soggy - to the mall to buy "The Complete Phantom of the Opera" and of cheering until I was hoarse during the Tony Awards that June...the Phantom performance with Michael Crawford and Sarah Brightman was, at the time, the most amazing thing I'd ever seen.

I wanted to see the show on Broadway very, very badly. But that wasn't to be. My great-aunt didn't like NYC at all, but she did try to get tickets. A very prim, proper person, she even tried to obtain tickets from a scalper who operated out of the kitchen of his sports bar. We even tried a trip to the NYC in the off-chance we could get last-minute cancellation tickets as some friends had. No such luck, but I did come home with a silver Phantom pin (which I still have and love), a Phantom sweatshirt (ditto), a huge color poster of Michael Crawford in full Phantom costume, and a major love for NYC.

My friends used to tease me a lot about Phantom. One hated my Crawford poster and said, "Ewwww, that's like crushing on your grandfather!" Didn't help to explain that I didn't have a crush on him (my celebrity crush was reserved for David Bowie). And my classmates never understood why I decorated my locker and binder with handcolored photocopies of pictures from the show. Peer pressure didn't matter. I was glad to get my hands on any clippings about the show and taped whatever I could on TV. I remember one PBS special that featured Robert Guillaume singing "The Music of The Night" (did NOT enjoy) and Dale Kristien and Reece Holland singing "All I Ask of You." (I've never been able to track this special down and it might actually be two different programs). I read Leroux. I tracked down other versions such as Lon Chaney, Claude Rains, and Robert Englund films. I returned to my childhood love of opera by borrowing Phantom-referenced works like Faust from the library.

Along the way, my interest in Phantom and my little collection of Michael Crawford cassettes led to my other musical love, Les Miserables.

By the early 90s, I still hadn't seen the musical on Broadway. My great-aunt and I made a couple of later tries, but never managed to get tickets. We almost did on the last try. There was ONE ticket available. My great-aunt didn't feel comfortable leaving me alone in NYC long enough to see a show without her. And I wasn't going to press the issue. At the time, some guy named Hugh Panaro was playing Raoul...

Even though I did see the show on Broadway, I at least got to see Michael Crawford in concert when The Music of Andrew Lloyd Webber at the Knickerbocker Arena and that was pretty awesome.

When I first got internet service in the mid-90s, one of the first things I looked for on-line was Phantom material...but there wasn't much.

During the next few years, I was busy with real life and, with no chance of the tour coming here, Phantom ended up on the back burner for a time.

When the movie came out, I saw it the day it opened and found PhantomFans at the end of 2004. In March 2005, I went down to NYC to see Dear Frankie since none of the local cinemas picked it up initially. I hadn't been to NYC in over ten years and my life had undergone some serious changes with death of my great-aunt. I was having trouble with internalizing the aftermath and needed diversions like this. While walking through Times Square, I saw the "Remember Your First Time" billboard and thought to myself, "OK, I waited long enough for MY first time."

As soon as I got home, I ordered a front-row ticket for April 9...and the rest is history.

Wow, Paula, that's a long way to go for your first performance!

My very first exposure was back in junior high. My mom was driving me home from school one day, and she wanted to listen to a birthday present from my aunt--a cassette of The Andrew Lloyd Webber Premiere Collection. I was kind of into musicals at the time, so I was all "sure, why not?" So she pops it in the tape deck, and the first thing I hear is the Harley/Brightman single version of the title song. Nowaways I find it cheesy, but back then I was fascinated by the music and the almost psychic connection described by the singers. Over the next couple years I "borrowed" that tape from my mom for long periods of time (I practically wore out the part with the Crawford MotN single from re-listening), saw the Dance mini-series, read one of those "abridged for kids" versions of the original novel, and had the good fortune to see MC in the Music of ALW tour at Fiddler's Green (my mom won tickets and a limo ride from a local radio station). So, by the time I was in ninth grade and the tour finally rolled around to Denver (first show to play the Temple Buell, in fact) I was already in love with the story and there was no way in h€ll I was letting it pass me by. So my mom got tickets for herself, my brother, and me way back in the balcony nosebleeds for the matinee on December 14th, 1992--my first of eight (so far) times.

~LCD

Pretty cool stories, guys.

I don't remember the exact date, but it was 1990, and I think I had either just started school or was still in preschool. We still lived in upstate NY at the time. My grandparents had been to see the show on Broadway with Steve Barton, Rebecca Luker (or Katharine Buffaloe, not sure), and Davis Gaines (what an amazing cast that would have been to see). I'm not sure exactly how or why they gave them to me, because I don't think I was really into musicals, theater, etc., yet (though it may have been because I was starting to get into the old Universal horror movies), but they left the Playbill and a cassette of the OLC highlights.

I don't have a vivid memory of my first time listening to it (I was only 5), but I know I became obsessed instantly. I didn't really know what most of the staging looked like, or what the whole plot was (I wouldn't get the full OLC until a couple years later), and I had a very fertile imagination, so I spent a lot of time filling in the holes, thinking what the show must be like, and acting it out. Part of the fill-ins in the plot actually came from the Claude Raines version, which I got on video for Christmas in 1991. I was then under the impression that the Phantom had actually been scarred by acid.

I would trace and copy the pics from the Playbill (and a subsequent one from when my grandparents saw the show a year or two later with Mark Jacoby, Karen Culliver, and Hugh Panaro), and I even "cast" my friends and siblings in what I thought would be a staging of the show in my living room (with me as the Phantom, of course). It never came to be, but I had drawn a poster in the mold of the OLC highlights cover, and written up a cast list like the one in the Playbills (you can see the seeds of my obsession with casting, not just for Phantom, but for all kinds of movies and shows). I wish I had kept those, because it would be funny to look back on now.

One of my friends had been to see the show in Toronto, which was not much farther by car than NYC (we used to get the CBC, and I would love when ads for the Toronto production would come on, with footage from that Behind the Mask music video many of you have probably seen). She listened to the OCC almost every night before she went to bed, she told me, but I loved my OLC, which turned me into a huge MC fan. I remember someone wrote in to one of those magazines that come in the Sunday paper (Parade or USA Today or something like that) about the Toronto production, and the person who answers the letters said he thought Colm Wilkinson was a better Phantom than MC, and I remember being really angry, but at the same time curious. (Little did I know then that someday I also would actually prefer Colm's Phantom to MC's :shocked: ). I cut out the accompanying photo (the "floating, falling" MOTN pose) of Colm and Rebecca Caine, and used to marvel at how different Colm looked than did MC and other Phantoms (you can see now the beginning of my obsession with the Phantom's mask and makeup from different productions).

I didn't see the show until we moved down here, and the tour came to Norfolk, VA, which is about 2 hours away, when I was in 5th grade (December 2, 1995, also way back in the nosebleeds, which is where I also saw the show when it came to Raleigh in 2003, the next of 4 times I saw it). But I did get to see MC in concert at Radio City Music Hall in September 1992, with the Music of ALW tour (seems three of us were lucky to have seen him then, when he was at the height of his fame and vocal prowess). That was a magical experience, probably even more so than any time I've seen the show itself. I got to see MC at the stage door (though police barricades were keeping the crowd from him, and he jumped right into his limo after a wave and a smile).

Awesome topic

Okay...so when I was about 14, I had this friend who LOVED musicals. We'd sit together at school every recess and lunchtime and he'd put on cast recordings and soundtracks to a ton of different musicals and films. He used to play this one musical over and over and over again....something called The Phantom of the Opera (OLC cast recording). We listened to it one lunchtime and then he lent it to me and said, "go home and listen to this". I listened to bits of it (Carlotta screeching, Meg screaming, lots of bass and organ...) but it wasn't until I got to Sarah Brightman's cadenza in the title song that I perked up. I thought, "wow....I've never heard anyone sing like that before."

Cut a long story short, this friend and I eventually became boyfriend and girlfriend...and every lunchtime we'd sit and listen to Phantom, often singing along...out loud. I drove my family insane, playing the OLC recording day in and day out for months and months, and trying to copy Sarah Brightman. Actually, when my mother overheard that I could hit the top E, she dragged me to singing lessons, and the rest, they say, is history. After a long time (like, years) I finally branched out and started listening to other Christines, as well as reading Leroux, watching the film versions, etc.

Also, that friend and I went to see the show live for the first time together....even though we weren't together anymore at that point. It was sublime.
I blame Phantom for a lot of who I am today. Hey, maybe that's cliched, but all of my singing, ballet, love of churches, cemeteries, Gothicness (in moderation), Sarah Brightman, Andrew Lloyd Webber, musicals in general....it's all been sparked because of Phantom.

So yeah. That's my story.

Great topic! My answer is a little more boring, I'm afraid. I used to be quite a proficient piano player (that's what I started off doing in university before switching to French Lit). When I was playing quite a bit in the early nineties, I would be asked frequently to accompany vocalists participating in festivals and the like. I'd heard of Phantom but was never into musicals (and still really am not a huge fan -- most of them seem silly to me). I often accompanied budding vocalists who sang Think of Me, Wishing, Music of the Night, and even the title song. I bought the CD and always loved the Prologue/Overture/Hannibal/Angel of Music/Little Lotte/Title Song sequence. I must have listened to my old cassette countless times. First time to NYC in 1991 I checked out the show with Mark Jacoby, Karne Culliver, and Hugh Panaro - and what a show. Frequent trips to New York, London, and Toronto would have me check out the show again and again. It's my own tradition with myself to watch the show every trip to one of those places (and I travel to London at least three or four times a year). I've been watching it now for almost twenty years - hard to believe! - and find it fresh every time.

My very young wife was a huge phan and used to fall asleep to Phantom while I stayed up all might playing video games (hey, I was young, too). I was just amazed by the depth of the music....I still am.

My story is quite boring in comparison to others. Basically, my mum likes the show and saw the UK tour a couple of times and had the OLC recording. When I became interested in musicals, she suggested that I listened to the OLC. I did, and fell in love with the music, so my mum bought us tickets to see the show in London, which I was very excited about. Shortly after the tickets were booked, the movie was released. I went to see it, and suddenly, I wasn't as excited about seeing the show anymore! My mum assured me that the musical was better, and she was right. A few weeks later, I saw the show at Her Majesty's Theatre, and was pleased to find that the Phantom could sing well, Christine used at least 2 facial expressions and Madame Giry didn't talk in a French accent!

I love this topic, here is my story:

I live in Michigan. I was born in 1988, so of course, I got the onslaught of 'commericals' for the musicals being played in Toronto at the time. INCLUDING Joseph with Donny Osmond!

But, when was younger than 5 (I'm guessing somewhere in there), they would play the commericals promoting Phantom. (CALL PHANTOM BY PHONE 872-2222! [Pantages]). And they SCARED the bejeezus out of me. I kid you not. The guy who did the voice of the Phantom, and shouted that telephone number out didn't help much either. Some of the commericals was the candleabrum with the woman singing in the background ; another was the dozens of candles lighting the phantom mask ; another one was one of the chandelier dropping and then a rose falling on the ground. But each one of them ended with that creepy man shouting that. So I came to associate that as "THE PHANTOM". And I was terrified.

I had babysitters who'd come over and they'd be wearing sweatshirts of Phantom, saying they saw it. My mother even asked if we wanted to see it, but I was terrified. I was so scared of what the Phantom would do onstage and blah blah blah.

Since I was brought up on musicals, my mother told my uncle to purchase The Very Best of Andrew Lloyd Webber (because I had the cassette as a child). But every time it came to Phantom of the Opera title song (sung by Crawford and Brightman) I had to skip it because the Phantom scared me and the woman vocalizing was terrifiying too! (And this was 1997.)

It wasn't until 2001, my older sister developed this insane crush on Crawford that she purchased the re-release of the album. She listened to it one night, and then the next night, she sat me down for me to listen to it. She gave me the libretto, played the CD and said to me, "You're going to shut up and listen to this". And I did.

I recall it so strongly, me sitting there with the libretto, and I felt like I was watching a movie in my mind while reading what wasn't on the CD. I had my older sister sitting there, telling me some funny remarks (one being Crawford must have been so ashamed to sing the Point of No Return song, because he's singing about sex all over that stage). But at the end of the CD, I was crying. I never felt that a show, or a musical album!, could do that to me.

And the next day, I stole her CD. I would play it while playing video games, I'd play it at night before I went to bed. I had this running gag of how many times I had listened to it (I think I made it to 200 before the month was over). This all happened January of 2002. I was obsessed. But it didn't stop there.

Everything you all did being young, being in High School, having friends that were weird and liked things you were normally into, well... you get the picture. I pretty much either annoyed half of them or entranced half of them to the point they became obsessed with me too.

I think that I also connected to Phantom because it was a period piece, and a love story. I like both period pieces and love stories, but put the two together and it's an explosion of awesomeness in my brain.

On top of that, I was able to post a bit on the Crawford movie campaign before it closed down ; chatted it up a lot on the original Phantom forum ; hung around online with the famed Opera Ghost ; and saw the movie during my Phantom high.

So, this month would be my 8th year of being a Phantom fan. I'm pretty proud of it. Because I've met so many friends, had so many awesome memories, and I'm still going strong and creating friends and memories because of this musical. It's truly been one of the greatest blessings of my life.

The um... *coughs* 2004 movie. But the friend who forced me to watch it has long since been forgiven.

My high school marching band went to New York City for the 1997 Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade (that was the one where it was extremely windy and a woman got brained by a falling lamp post). I was fourteen and a freshman. Part of our itinerary was going to see a performance of Phantom, and I will admit to not being very interested in either the idea or the musical itself--I recall my older sister had actually asked us before if my twin sister and I wanted to see the tour on an Atlanta stop, and we said no because we thought it'd be boring--until the overture started. From that point on I was hooked, and became an undying fan of the show, Thomas James O'Leary, and Ted Keegan.

I wasn't able to see the show again until the national tour visited Birmingham three looooooooooong years later. I've never been back to Broadway, but I've seen the tour nine times now, and I'm hoping to add on to that now that I hear it will be in Atlanta this summer. Along the way I created both Repetiteurs Anonymous and the Ted Keegan fansite, attempted to author "Teacher of Music", struck up a ten-years-and-running correspondence with D.C. Anderson, dragged my husband into the phandom, got interviewed by Ted's hometown newspaper, and met a lot of awesome people, denizens of this board included.

phantomphan1992 wrote:The um... *coughs* 2004 movie. But the friend who forced me to watch it has long since been forgiven.

Can't have been so bad if it got you hooked, no?

Well, my story is nothing unusual. In 1992 I fell in love with the musical Elisabeth. (I have seen it over 220 times since) I checked out every musical I could get my paws on and a friend told me to listen to the OLC. I did and found it to be rather sterile, plus Crawford's rather nasal crooning and Brightman's idea of operatic singing were unacceptable to me. Years passed. My best friend, a Phan of many years, tried to get me interested in POTO and told me to listen to Peter Karrie. Back then I found no clips of him till I stumbled upon PFN. I listened and in him I found everything I had been missing when listening to the OLC. PFN was in a movie mania back then and I saw it the day it came out in Austria and adored it. I saw it again and again and seeing it on the big screen beats the DVD any time. After that I heard more and more Phantoms and discovered that MC was breathtaking live. (In that role, anyway) I've seen the show live three times and had a blast. With time and more "Elisabeth" my enthusiasm faded again (Also due to the fact that loving the film is frowned upon these days, an idea I cannot fathom) but I still love to listen to PK, IJB and watch scenes from the movie occasionally.

Elisabetta611 wrote:

phantomphan1992 wrote:The um... *coughs* 2004 movie. But the friend who forced me to watch it has long since been forgiven.

Can't have been so bad if it got you hooked, no?

Well, my story is nothing unusual. In 1992 I fell in love with the musical Elisabeth. (I have seen it over 220 times since) I checked out every musical I could get my paws on and a friend told me to listen to the OLC. I did and found it to be rather sterile, plus Crawford's rather nasal crooning and Brightman's idea of operatic singing were unacceptable to me. Years passed. My best friend, a Phan of many years, tried to get me interested in POTO and told me to listen to Peter Karrie. Back then I found no clips of him till I stumbled upon PFN. I listened and in him I found everything I had been missing when listening to the OLC. PFN was in a movie mania back then and I saw it the day it came out in Austria and adored it. I saw it again and again and seeing it on the big screen beats the DVD any time. After that I heard more and more Phantoms and discovered that MC was breathtaking live. (In that role, anyway) I've seen the show live three times and had a blast. With time and more "Elisabeth" my enthusiasm faded again (Also due to the fact that loving the film is frowned upon these days, an idea I cannot fathom) but I still love to listen to PK, IJB and watch scenes from the movie occasionally.

Someone from Austria, AND likes Elisabeth. Elisabeth, next to Phantom, is my second favorite musical. (And I'm from the States.) Its so cool that you got into a lot of English speaking Phantoms. Where as I, I tend to prefer the opposite. Anyway, that's an awesome story! Seeing Elisabeth over 220 times! I'm jealous!

ML6 wrote:

Elisabetta611 wrote:

phantomphan1992 wrote:The um... *coughs* 2004 movie. But the friend who forced me to watch it has long since been forgiven.

Can't have been so bad if it got you hooked, no?

Well, my story is nothing unusual. In 1992 I fell in love with the musical Elisabeth. (I have seen it over 220 times since) I checked out every musical I could get my paws on and a friend told me to listen to the OLC. I did and found it to be rather sterile, plus Crawford's rather nasal crooning and Brightman's idea of operatic singing were unacceptable to me. Years passed. My best friend, a Phan of many years, tried to get me interested in POTO and told me to listen to Peter Karrie. Back then I found no clips of him till I stumbled upon PFN. I listened and in him I found everything I had been missing when listening to the OLC. PFN was in a movie mania back then and I saw it the day it came out in Austria and adored it. I saw it again and again and seeing it on the big screen beats the DVD any time. After that I heard more and more Phantoms and discovered that MC was breathtaking live. (In that role, anyway) I've seen the show live three times and had a blast. With time and more "Elisabeth" my enthusiasm faded again (Also due to the fact that loving the film is frowned upon these days, an idea I cannot fathom) but I still love to listen to PK, IJB and watch scenes from the movie occasionally.

Someone from Austria, AND likes Elisabeth. Elisabeth, next to Phantom, is my second favorite musical. (And I'm from the States.) Its so cool that you got into a lot of English speaking Phantoms. Where as I, I tend to prefer the opposite. Anyway, that's an awesome story! Seeing Elisabeth over 220 times! I'm jealous!

It's an amazing show. I saw it first a few weeks after it premiered. The OVC is just unbeatable. Its final run in Vienna has ended years ago and I still miss it. From standingroom to front row, I've seen it from every angle. We've had some amazing productions over the years. Beauty and the Beast as well as Tanz der Vampire, both starring Steve Barton. (Ethan Freeman was also in B&B) And then there's "Rebecca" which will come to Bway. Terribly OT, I know, but who's your fave Elisabeth and Death? I've seen them all but IMO Pia Douwes & Uwe Kröger own those roles till this day.

Elisabetta611 wrote:

It's an amazing show. I saw it first a few weeks after it premiered. The OVC is just unbeatable. Its final run in Vienna has ended years ago and I still miss it. From standingroom to front row, I've seen it from every angle. We've had some amazing productions over the years. Beauty and the Beast as well as Tanz der Vampire, both starring Steve Barton. (Ethan Freeman was also in B&B) And then there's "Rebecca" which will come to Bway. Terribly OT, I know, but who's your fave Elisabeth and Death? I've seen them all but IMO Pia Douwes & Uwe Kröger own those roles till this day.

I know, we should probably bring this to another thread, lady. But, I say Pia and Uwe. I used to be a fan girl of Uwe but now, I'm not so much anymore. But I think I prefer his Essen version of Der Tod more than anything. Same thing for Pia and her Elisabeth. Okay. Going to create a topic for us so that we can gush about this awesome musical. Sorry, y'all!

EDIT: I created a topic for us to gush over in the 'Other Musicals' section.

It literally took me 2 years from becoming a fan to actually seeing the show.

I first heard the show, on a plane, Air Canada Barbados to Toronto for summer vacation, they were looping the Canadian Cast on one of the audio channels. This was back in 92. I loved the music, the overture hooked me in (i had this creepy obsession at the time for organ music )

Anyways, I listened to it over and over for the 5 hour flight but did not know what it actually was (it was not listed in the inflight mag. but i gathered from the title song that this was about "Phantom of the Opera". Cut to 3 weeks later and I am getting ready to fly home, see an add in the paper about the show at the Pantages and think, fine, when I come next year I will go see it. Convince my aunt to buy a CD of the show that we see in the mall that day, but I don't have a CD player, this was 92 remember, anyways, i copy it onto a cassette to take back to Barbados with me. Listen to the show again on the flight home. When I get home i start listening to the cassette but realise something sounds different but I cant quite put my finger on it. Basically my aunt bought the London highlights so that's what I was listening to, and because the flight mag didnt have any info on what I was listening to, I just figure I was listening to the same thing but somehow was remembering it "wrong".

This goes on for 8 months. Take a trip to Florida and decide to get the "real" cassette because this dubbed copy is ready to pop. I see in the store 2 casettes taped together, I ask the guy why are they taped together, I only want one. (duh, i didnt understand the concept of a full recording vs highlights) when I start to listen to the full think i remember bits that I heard on the flight, like the auction and Notes and realise I was not crazy.

(footnote, the CD my aunt bought was the London highlights, but for some odd reason, it was not broken up into tracks, rather was one long 60 min song, isn't that the oddest thing ever)

another thing, this is totally odd, having listened to the highlights CD for almost a year with no notes or lyrics or synopsis or anything, you get a warped sence of that the story like is about. I thought WYWSHA was being sung because the Phantom left Christine and had no Idea PONR was part of an "opera"

anyways. It's next summer, going to Toronto as usual but determined to see the show, my aunt, bless her, calls up to get me tix, tells me that ALL tix are $92. CDN. I freak out, cant afford it (I was a student with no income, my parents paid for the trip) Get there totally depressed, finally buy the Canadian casette (yup still using casettes) finally get some sort of libretto (the full London casette didnt have ANY words), but can't see the show. Visit another aunt the DAY BEFORE I LEAVE and she tells me "oh we saw Phantom last month for $40."

Moral here is BOOK YOUR TICKETS YOURSELF

Another year goes by, August 5th 1994, I finally see the show at the Pantages, $95. ticket and all (I figured after 2 years I should just save up and get a front row seat)

I dont remember much about it because I was too excited. I didnt know anything about the look of the show, so seeing posters outside with a bed and an elephant I didnt know what to think. and having a chandelier rising up above my head was just too much to handle all at once, before I knew it i was on the train back home and literally chunks of the show I could not recall.

It's hard being a fan when you live on an island in the middle of nowhere, I must have spent thousands of dollars on airfare over the last 16 years to see the show. That's why I am building a small version in my garage, lol

Oh Yay and Hooray! I love these kinds of threads! How did I miss this one before??? Oh memory lane… good times…

Two items I must comment on first:

LadyC: You and I have almost exactly the same Phanniversary! Well, first time seeing the show, that is. Mine is Dec 13th, 1992! Spooky….

ML6: Yay for phans from Michigan! My home state! I grew up in Ann Arbor, and went to MSU (crazy, I know). Where in Michigan are you, if you don’t mind my asking?

Okay, now for my phan story:

I remember listening to the title song from the cast recording at a friends house in ’88 or ’89 and thinking it was pretty nifty, but at that time (shame on me) 8 year old me didn’t really get that into it. I wish I could recall the exact date, but it was sometime in Dec ‘91/Jan ’92 when I first became a real phan. I lived in Ann Arbor, Michigan (I my home town) and the show had recently opened in Toronto (not too far) and Phantom mania was pretty much going hard core. All the kids at my school were listening to it, so I picked up the cassettes of the OLC while at the mall with my mom. I was pretty much hooked after the first time through. We went skiing that weekend and stayed at a family friend’s cabin, and I was sooooo in love with the recording I pretty much refused to take off my headphones. My sister, 2&1/2 years younger than me, also instantly became a phan – which meant we somehow managed to share the headphones. It took some doin’. My parents thought we were bonkers. Can’t imagine why….

As soon as we got back, I tracked down the Leroux novel (which my dad happened to have) and read it cover to cover, followed very quickly by Kay’s novel (new and easily available in book stores back then). I picked up the Complete Phantom by George Perry, posters, t-shirts, movies, mugs, calendars, etc.

Lucky for me, that spring (’92) an ad for the US Tour ran in the newspaper. I literally counted down the days for MONTHS until we saw the show. Kevin Gray, Sarah Pfisterer and Nat Chandler in the US tour in Detroit.

Oh! I’d also like to add, like several others of you, I saw MC on tour in the Music of ALW in Detroit in the fall of ’92. So awesomeness! We were in the center of the 2nd row. It was such a phenomenal experience – loved it!!! I also got to see Sarah Brightman (front row!) headline the tour a few years later.

I made my first journey to Toronto in the spring of ’93 and saw the show at the Pantages for the first time, back when Colm Wilkinson was still headlining there. I fell in love with that production (though not so much Colm…), the Pantages, the city. I met my husband seeing Phantom there, and I now call Toronto home

I guess it wouldn’t be a stretch to say I’ve been a pretty hard core nutter ever since (and I mean that with all the love in my little phan heart). I decorated my room and my locker with Phantom stuff in middle school and high school, and later my dorm in university, and my home when I moved in with my phellow phan hubby, Jeff. I hung out with phans in HS and university, pulling crazy phantom movie marathon all nighters and caffeine fueled road trips to see the US tour, or to Toronto. I put on ‘Phantom’ shows with my sister and friends in our basement, wrote letters to the actors, subscribed to the newsletters – back when they were done via snail mail and the interwebs were just a dream… I’ve been fortunate to see the show 76 times, and I’m sure I’m not done yet! And now I’m getting all nostalgic so I think I should probably sign this off before it gets any longer…..

Rebecca wrote:

ML6: Yay for phans from Michigan! My home state! I grew up in Ann Arbor, and went to MSU (crazy, I know). Where in Michigan are you, if you don’t mind my asking?

I'm from a very awesome town called Livonia. It's small, but it's home. And, I was JUST in Ann Arbor (an hour ago, actually). I had to see my dad. He's in the hospital. But, I do frequent the area downtown, cause there is that really awesome re-sale CD/Record store that has a whole truckload of neat CD's to purchase.

Rebecca wrote:
LadyC: You and I have almost exactly the same Phanniversary! Well, first time seeing the show, that is. Mine is Dec 13th, 1992! Spooky….

Except I think I got the year wrong--I was fourteen, so that would have been December of '91 (we both saw the NT, and that would have been a neat trick to have it playing in two different venues at once!). Still pretty eerie--almost exactly a year apart!

~LCD

For me it was when my Mom went to see Phantom back in 1991 when I believe Steve Barton was Phantom. She brought the music home and played it for me and my father... since then I've been hooked!

Scorp wrote: https://2img.net/h/i177.photobucket.com/albums/w213/TheScorpionUK/LETTER.jpg

It's not , it's and !

I love that letter, so cute, and I can just imagine how amazing it would have been to receive a letter like that when you were a child. Yay!

dolly-ry wrote:I love that letter, so cute, and I can just imagine how amazing it would have been to receive a letter like that when you were a child. Yay!

Actually, I was pissed off they didn't give me a mask.

I absolutely love it! That's adorable! Whoever the 'assistant' was that replied definitely deserved bonus points for such a cute response!

Rebecca wrote:I absolutely love it! That's adorable! Whoever the 'assistant' was that replied definitely deserved bonus points for such a cute response!

I agree, it really is a cute letter. I wonder what they would reply today?