Qoutes from Magazine & Newspaper Articles

From Starlog Magazine, Sci-Fi Fantasy Magazine 1989

Interview with Dave Willets, Claire Moore

On the Phantom "this guy is not a bad guy, there is nothing wrong with him apart from his physical deformity." Willets defends the phantoms more outrageous deeds, including extortion and murder, as acts of last resort by a man who has invested years of his life and all of his love in a young dancer, secretly training her to sing in his own musical fantasies."For years everything is going quite smoothly, he knows her she has never met him but he knows her, He has been quite satified with being behind the mirror"

Christine welcomes the attention of this magical tutor, "In the beginning she is vulnerable, and there is nothing else in her life, really, since her father died." says Claire Moore, who now sings the role in London, " Until she actually meets the phantom she assumes that it is the spirit of her father, "Suddenly Raoul comes in and it is that moment that starts her thinking, she has a bit more to do with real life, shes not up in the clouds. it is so easy to become obsessed with your voice and your career, and then you meet somebody! it does happen in real life" says Moore.

Willets see it from the Phantom's point of view. " He sends all these notes and messages, and he tells people what to do but no one listens to him. He gets into such a state that he can only do one thing and that is to draw attention to himself by murdering people. No one will look at him or talk to him. Maybe now they'll listen!"

Both Willets and Moore admire the final scene, which is similar to the novel's ending but is not duplicated in any of the phantom films. "At the end, when Christine kisses him-it is so hard for him to say-Christine, I love you-At that point when the music swells, I don't think you can fail!, How can you not be affected by it, the final scene is stunning and brillian." Willets says.

Christines choice to leave the Phantom is her only option"She can't forgive him for all he has done, because, after all, he has killed one or two people on the way and not made life at all pleasent for her. I thnk she can understand him and does care what happens to him, but she can't stay there, That would mean giving up her lif, and she could'nt do that" Moore says

Willets agrees, "she has kissed him she has touched his face, and the spell that he wanted to weave has been broken. Alll the fronts, all the game playing, and all the rest of it are over, it's for real now. At the end, when it comes to the final crunch he realizes that she, being a young beautiful girl with her whole life ahead of her, can't be cocooned in this labyrinth in the Opera house. He has every oppurtunity to kill Raoul and just run off with her, but he does'nt. He knows that she can't really stay with the Phantom because it is not right. And because he loves her so much, he lets her and Raoul go and continue life."

Still, Christine leaves behind a wiser man, instead of a grown child who has allways believed that people are like his magic tricks, things he can manipulate at his leisure. "Everything has been You will do as I say, but facing his loss, the phantom is a changed man, he has become humble and man enough and grown up enough to say I love you, He has been released." Willets says

And in doing so the audience can be distraught , "When I am crying, sometimes I put my head down and I can catch a glimpse of the front row, You see these guys with tattoos, with a little tissue dabbing their eyes! but you have to be careful not to turn the screw.

at the stage door there are people who say-Thank you for my Music of the Night"

Other Phantom thearics, require the phantomto be a stuntman, near the end of act one, the phantom must hide in and then appear from, a small platform dangling from the very toop of the stage, the Phantom uses this platform, named the Angel because of the figures, in order to spy on Christine and Raoul, Willets must remain tightly crouched on the platform till the scene is complete, waiting for his turn, Willets laughingly admits, " I listen to what is going on, ther are little holes that you can peep through and see the audience reaction.

More to come

Thanks for this! I love this sort of thing -- my computer is full of archived articles and I have boxes of newspaper clippings. Especially great to get something from the early days.

"And because he loves her so much, he lets her and Raoul go and continue life." Still, Christine leaves behind a wiser man, instead of a grown child who has always believed that people are like his magic tricks, things he can manipulate at his leisure. "Everything has been You will do as I say, but facing his loss, the phantom is a changed man, he has become humble and man enough and grown up enough to say I love you, He has been released." Willets says.

Yes! Yes! YEEES! Exactly. It's a sort of redemption. For both the Phantom and Christine. They're freed of their "inner ghosts", and they both make the sane choice.

Thank you so much for posting this. As Scorp wrote, it's so interesting to read about the roots of Phantom, about what the early days were like.

operafantomet wrote:"And because he loves her so much, he lets her and Raoul go and continue life." Still, Christine leaves behind a wiser man, instead of a grown child who has always believed that people are like his magic tricks, things he can manipulate at his leisure. "Everything has been You will do as I say, but facing his loss, the phantom is a changed man, he has become humble and man enough and grown up enough to say I love you, He has been released." Willets says.

Yes! Yes! YEEES! Exactly. It's a sort of redemption. For both the Phantom and Christine. They're freed of their "inner ghosts", and they both make the sane choice.

Good quotation, that. Tempted to forward it on to LSD. I remember they had an MC soundbite along the same lines as well a while ago; I'll have to see if I can find it again one day and find out where they got it from.

I have got tons more just have'nt got around to typing them out. some are cool some are funny and some are warm,

I've got a few pieces from a theatre magazine feature on the Broadway production's tenth anniversary. I'd actually started to post some on the previous incarnation of this forum and then misplaced the magazine entirely. I just found it this morning...so I'll start posting some of it as soon as I have time.

Hey, I've got that issue of Starlog. It's a nice issue

R.

My contribution of the week -- I'll add some more every now and then. This one's from the New York Times in 1988:

'Phantom': Scalpers' Bonanza
By JEREMY GERARD

January 20, 1988

Inside the hotel, tickets to ''Phantom of the Opera'' were unavailable at any price. ''I don't have anything to do with that show,'' the man behind the theater-tickets counter at the Sheraton Centre said yesterday at lunch time. He threw up his hands and shrugged in response to a question he'd had a hundred times before. ''There's nothing available for more than a year, so I don't even try.''

Outside near the hotel's entrance, however, nobody shrugged. A ticket to ''Phantom of the Opera'' could be had, a limousine driver said, for $250. Or $175 if the transaction could be made right away.

Scalping, the illegal resale of tickets at a premium, was not born with ''Phantom.'' Theater patrons have always been willing to pay inflated prices to see the hottest shows.

With ''Phantom,'' however, which opens next Tuesday, that situation is exaggerated as never before: More people are paying more money to more different middlemen, whether they are charities selling high-priced tickets to raise money, scalpers working the street, ticket agents operating outside the city, or well-connected people with access to the large number of house seats available to the producer, the theater owner and certain members of the company.

Before ''Phantom'' played its first preview at the Majestic Theater on Jan. 9, a record $16,583,417 worth of tickets had been sold to the show. Most of those tickets will be resold for much more than their face value. Cameron Mackintosh, who, with the composer Andrew Lloyd Webber's Really Useful Group, is the show's producer, said last week that more than half of the advance sale for ''Phantom'' had been to theater parties, usually charities that resell tickets at a premium to raise funds.

Making a charitable contribution is not the only way one can spend a lot of money for a ticket to ''Phantom.'' On the day the Majestic box office opened in November (after several months of mail and group sales), people lined up overnight to buy tickets. Others lined up with them, brazenly offering cash to anyone who would buy four pairs to two performances - the limit set, for that day only, by the Shubert Organization, which owns the Majestic.
''When 'Les Mis' opened, a guy was at the box office, saying, 'Give me four on this date, six on this date,' '' Philip J. Smith, the vice president of Shubert, recalled last week. ''I couldn't tell you how much he'd spent on tickets. I was watching, and finally I couldn't take it anymore. So I asked him what he was planning to do with all those tickets.

''He said, 'I'm buying them for my employees, to use as an incentive.' He no more planned to use those tickets as an incentive than you or I. But it sure was a fast response. And it stopped me dead in my tracks.''

New York State Arts and Cultural Affairs Law limits the surcharge on resale of tickets to $2 over the face value. But that applies only to ticket agents who deal in volume, according to Gary Walker, a spokesman for the city Consumer Affairs Department, which licenses all agents.

Excluded are businesses that provide a service with the tickets, such as taking credit cards or delivering. That leaves a huge loophole for scalpers.

While the box office at the Majestic is out of nearly all the best orchestra and front mezzanine seats through next fall, for example, buyers (usually armed with an expense account) could have ''Phantom'' tickets for early February from any number of Connecticut and New Jersey agencies, at prices ranging from $100 to $150.
These agencies advertise in city publications; businesses use them to secure tickets for prized clients and they get bills that list the date, the number of tickets and the price paid. When he spots an advertisement from one of those brokers, said the show's general manager, Alan Wasser, a lawyer for the ''Phantom'' company threatens legal action.

Although city regulations do not control resale of theater tickets outside the five boroughs, Mr. Walker said, ''scalping is scalping.'' Sometimes it's done by telephone, with a credit card; sometimes it happens in a doorway near the theater. On a recent evening, while a couple of dozen hopefuls waited outside the Majestic box office for cancellations, an offer was quietly made to one in the line that tickets could be had for $250 each - a situation even the nearby security guard could not contain.

''It's an enormous enforcement problem,'' Mr. Walker said. He added that despite the fact that the penalty for ticket scalping, a misdemeanor, is up to a year in prison, ''It's unlikely that most people, if charged, bother to show up for their court dates.''

Producers and theater owners exert enormous control over ticket sales. There are almost always tickets available to a show, regardless of the ''Sold Out'' notice over the box office window.

Many of the best seats - 64 at each performance of ''Phantom'' - are house seats available to the producer, the press agent and certain members of the company, according to the general manager. An additional 12 seats a performance are controlled by Shubert, Mr. Wasser said. On nights when the house is not taken up with a theater party, the number of house seats nearly doubles: 124 to the company, 38 to the theater owner. Those 162 tickets represent about 10 percent of the theater's 1,609 seats; factor in the 292 orchestra seats that have obstructed views of some of the most exciting action in the show, and the number of prime seats not readily available to the public is even more significant.

House seats are closely watched, Mr. Wasser said: ''Virtually every contract we sign with members of the team includes a line that it is illegal to resell house seats. Beyond that warning, it's up to the individual's conscience. But we insist they keep records of where every pair of tickets goes, and those records are available to us and to the Attorney General's office.''

Recently, even some of the charities have taken to advertising tickets, for prices as high as $250 each. And the black market for tickets flourishes despite more diligent control over the box office. Mr. Wasser, the general manager, was surprised to learn of some regular advertising of ''Phantom'' tickets by scalpers, and the Department of Consumer Affairs registered only one complaint all last year about ticket scalping, according to Mr. Walker.

At least until the Fourth of July weekend, when most of the theater parties are over, there is virtually no such thing as a $50 ticket to ''Phantom of the Opera.''

I remember trying to get even scalped tickets to the show not long after the Tony Awards. I think we tried for about ten months - both with a local connection who sold his tickets out of the back kitchen of a small, smelly sports bar and on the street in NYC - before giving up.

Putting on a brave Front. Michael Crawford with the plaster cast model of his face, made yesterday by Chris Tucker. It will be used to transform the actor's features for his role as the Phantom of the Opera. The sculptor will work from the model to make another thin layer of foam latex "flesh" for the actor's face, complete with the requisite chilling extrase. the Phantom of the Opera opens at Her Majesty's Theatre, in London's West End in October (Photo Suresh Karadia.)

I wish I had a scanner there is a photo of Michael next fo his plaster self. and also with the plaster on him.

I am inviting people to go to their Library public, and look up some stuff, usually the best score of old Microfilm, Micro fishe are at the bigger University libraries, most University librarys you can walk in and look up stuff at the microfilm dept. the University of Akron allows locals like me to apply for a Communtie Patron card, obviously this varies from university and college, but it never hurts to ask, I am lucky my Public Library espcially the Main branch is super

and another helpful hand is the readers guide to periodical literature, they are huge volumes of this and that, it will lead you to an article and tell you the magazine and or newspaper (the major ones)

Kiddies this was way before the internet

Los Angeles Times, Morning Report

Stage Phantom's Crawford pulls a dissapearing act, Michael Crawford missed Wenesday evening and Thursday afternoon due to a slight case of the flu. Understudy Norman Large, who normally plays the smaller of the two company managers, M. Andre, went on in Crawfords place, "It was frightening and exciting" said Large of the Wenesday performance. At press time Crawford's ability to perform the role Thursay evening or tonight was unknown.

one of the critics wrote of the disapointment, so a few days later Calvin Remsberg, M. Firmin, wrote an article in the paper, see the play not the actor. (I will find this one and copy it.)

Calvin went on to defend his bud Norman Large, and said that it is about the play not the individual.

Phantomania The People 28th Feb. 1988 by Mydrim Jones,

The real Phantom of the opera is unmasked today... a middle-ageds sponster whos has been haunting the show since it opened a year ago.

Cuddly Geraldine MacIntosh has splashed out 3,000 pounds, just to see the "Love of my life" queing up for 32 hours to get prescious tickets for the smach West End hit.

Next week she will have seen the musical an amazing 200 times. "I just can't get enough of it some think me daft, but it is my life. I suppose I am an incurable romantic and an old softie."

She even forked out 1,200 pounds to see the New York version 6 times., "I meet the cast backstoge and they were all very lovely." Geraldine 46 even used to dress as the phantom with the white mask. "I once wore the mask but word got back to me that Micheal Crawford got a bit of a shock when he spotted his image near the front row and I stopped wearing it."

"I am known as the little phantom, they have adopted me.I go so often that they think I am a plant, one lady was convinced that they were paying me to turn up.""

"There is a line from the show, (My power over you grows stronger yet) and I felt someone saying to me come with me and I felt compelled to see it... It is like taking drugs, I get withdrawel when I stop. the music simply carresses you." she is known as Dolly to the staff,

Geraldine's devotion will be rewarded next week, to celebrrate her 200th visit, she will get a special stall seat--a gift from Sarah Brightman's brother Jay, a drama student selling programmes at the theater.

Openers: the Great Phantom Phace-Off- LA Magazine January 1991, by Bill Higgens

While Others debate the big issues--Was Robert Guillaume unceremoniously dumped? Does Micheal Crawford still have his heart in the role-we slipped behind the masks to uncover the really important artistic differences between our 2 phantoms of the opera

Preshow Arrival time:
Guillaume: 6 pm
Crawdford: 4:30pm

Mode of Arrival:
Guillaume: Dropped off by limo
Crawford: walks from nearby appartment

Backstage Beverage:
Guillaume: Red Zinger herbal tea
Crawford: English breakfast tea with milk (Sipped through a straw)

Backstage snack:
Guillaume: Popcorn
Crawford: None

Makeup time:(Before and After Performance)
Guillaume: 45mins; 10mins
Crawford: one hour; 20min

Backstage attire:
Guillaume: electric blue sweatsuit
Crawford: full Phantom Costume, including mask

Getting into costume;
Guillaume: Just prior to his appearance
Crawford: Well before curtain time

Apres-theater hangout:
Guillaume: Stepps Restaurant
Crawford: Otto Rothschild's Bar and Grill

Scalpers' prices for orchestra seat:
Guillaume: $100-$150
Crawford: $125-$250

Box office, salary, contract:
Requests for each performers lowest and highest-weeks grosses, weekly salary and exact number of contract pages were turned down by the producers' representatives..(Ed. Well Dah) Worth noting while bothe Guillaume and Crawford grossed between $80,000 to $100,000 in daily box office take during their runs, on the tady Crawfords announced return there was a $467,000 gross.

From Broadway Stories: by Marty Bell, published about 1992-1993?

Pages 209-217 when Kevin Gray and Dodie Pettit where in washington at the Kennedy Center,Children of a Washington woman named Estelle Sullivan wrote that they had purchased tickets, but Mrs. Sullivan was suffering through cancer and her condition was worse and that they were unable to see the show. So Kevin and Dodie, went to her home to visit her and performed Music of the Night and All I Ask of You. very touching

it also tells how Kevin auditioned.

Found this article while trying to do research on Timothy Nolen's short run... Click the link below for the full, very informative, article. From February, 1993.

After five years "The Phantom of the Opera" remains one of Broadway's hottest tickets, and it doesn't matter who plays the masked monster in the Andrew Lloyd Webber musical.

The show has been selling out since it opened Jan. 26, 1988, and people still queue up nightly at the Majestic Theater for returned tickets. The production is closing in on 2,100 performances.What is it about the story of a deformed composer who lives in the Paris Opera House and who loves a beautiful young dancer that keeps drawing audiences?

http://www.deseretnews.com/article/276055/PHANTOM-OF-THE-OPERA-SURPASSES-2000-SHOWS.html

Great stuff. Thanks, guys. Clearly the LA press had favorites between MC and Guillaume, but I agree, and I know MC would as well, that it's not about one man. The entire LA company was great. And while MC rarely wanted to be out sick and sacrificed his health to get back to the show because he knew his fans had paid good money to see him, he would never have the ego to suggest he was the only one worth seeing.

July 1990 USA Today by Eric Allen

Los Angeles-Robert Guillaume has donned the mask of the Phantom in the Phantom fo the Opera here, but most people don't know that he can sing, Who would have imagined that the man who starred as the butler-turned-Luieutenant-Governor on Soap and Benson could take over the helm of the worlds hottest musical theater production?

Actually, Guillaume spent 17 years in the theater, earning a Tony nomination in the lead role in Guys and Dolls in 1976, before making the leap to television.

"most of my career has been a musical career." says Guilliaume, 62, who grew up in St. Louis and first went to broadway because he could sing "A lot of performers have that background but as soon as people see them on TV they think that is all that they know how to do. I like to be like Benson" he says of the role that won him an Emmy in 1979 for Soap and in 1985 for Benson."Who you felt could protect himself from everyday adversities. He always knew what to say-he was never at a loss for words."

After Benson, Guillaume wanted to go back to the stage."I saw Phantom and told my manager to call the producers, it was a longshot, and I had no idea that they would say yes, but I have always believed in the old biblecal dictum, ask and you shall recieve. they said ,not a bad idea and asked me to come in a year later for the audition."

Guillaume identifies with the Phantom and man shunned by the people he wants to love because "There are parallels in the character to my life, and to the lives on any person who has ever felt like an outsider, I am a minority in a country that believes in majorities and minorites, and so emotionally I understand the man."

Since taking over the role in the LA production in May, Guilliaume has fared well in critics inevitable comparison to him and Micheal Crawford"Certainly I would not like to be comapared unfavorably, but thats the take, who would dare do Hamelt after John Gielgud? Yet they do it and each actor finds other things that Gielgud did not cover, it does not mean anything but that there are different versions and ideas for the role>"

Found a bunch of articles from the San Fransisco Chronicle during the San Fransisco run...

http://articles.sfgate.com/1998-10-15/news/17732778_1_paris-opera-chandelier-fifth-anniversary

http://articles.sfgate.com/1996-12-12/entertainment/17788250_1_care-center-paris-opera-house-phantom

http://articles.sfgate.com/1998-12-13/entertainment/17739629_1_paris-opera-house-phantom-meyerbeer-musical
---This last article is highly informative!

MajesticPhantom wrote:Found a bunch of articles from the San Fransisco Chronicle during the San Fransisco run...

http://articles.sfgate.com/1998-10-15/news/17732778_1_paris-opera-chandelier-fifth-anniversary

http://articles.sfgate.com/1996-12-12/entertainment/17788250_1_care-center-paris-opera-house-phantom

http://articles.sfgate.com/1998-12-13/entertainment/17739629_1_paris-opera-house-phantom-meyerbeer-musical
---This last article is highly informative!

I always get a little teary eyed when i read that last article.

http://articles.latimes.com/1990-04-29/entertainment/ca-535_1_robert-guillaume/3

http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9E07E5DB1739F931A35751C0A960958260&sec=&spon=&pagewanted=all

MajesticPhantom wrote:http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9E07E5DB1739F931A35751C0A960958260&sec=&spon=&pagewanted=all

That was a great article. To channel Rodney Dangerfield, replacements don't get no respect. Davis Gaines was the best Broadway Phantom other than Michael Crawford and Steve Barton, I think, and though his longevity has since twice or thrice been surpassed (by both McGillin and Panaro, and maybe even O'Leary), his quality hasn't. Hence why he's in my avatar.

"I knew I was right for the part" Marina Prior desparately wanted the starring role of Christine in Phantom of the Opera, she got it after a "terrifying" audition.

When Marina Prior arrived at The Weekly's photographic studio in Melbourne, she was still reeling from the news that she will play Christine Daae, the ethereal chorus girl who captivates the horribly disfigured Phantom, a musician who turns her into a star of the Paris Opera.

Marina has that ethereal beauty, and was tipped for the role long before she was chosen. It is something she desperately wanted. "Occasionally, a role comes along and you think,that is mine, I fell in love with it, the drama, the romance, the possibilities of making it my own. Vocallyphysically, I knew I could do it. I just knew that I was right for the part."

Her final audition for the role, before broadway director Hal Prince, in Melbourne's Princess Theatre, was terrifying.

"It was so intimidating, the lights were in my eyes, the audition panel were sitting half-way back in the stalls so I could not see them. When I sang I got no feedback, I felt like an insect under a microscope. There I was up on an empty stage feeling I had to fill it some way. it was a bit like being sent to the headmaster's office. Then there was the waiting. I was told that they would let me know that afternoon. it was the longest afternoon of my life, and still there was no phone call. I was strung out, at the end of my tether. I burst into tears on my way to work" (To play Cossette in "Les Miserables" at the same theatre where she auditioned earlier in the day.)

"All those months of sheer tension preparing for the audition. I was a wreck. When I got to my dressing room there was a magnum of french champagne waiting for me and a note saying 'Congratulations on your audition' it was a bit ambiguous. I Still was not sure that I got the role. When I was finally told, I wept... my feet did not touch the ground that night"

She was born to sing as a four year old she told her parents she wanted to be a singer.

Phantom which was written by Andrew Lloyd Webber of "Cats" and "Evita" and "Starlight Express" fame, has won every major british theatre honour and 7 tony awards incuding best musical. It will premiere at Melbourne's Princess theatre in December.

Right now the splendidly refurbished Princess is the only theatre in Austrailia big and grand enough to house the faboulous stage/senic effects in phantom including a gasp provoking fall from the ceiling by a massive chandelier.


Marina thinks it is appropriate the show should open there, the Princess has its own Phantom, the resident ghost Frederici, who is seldom seen but ever present. According to legend, Frederici is "Faust" actor Frederick Baker, who died on stage from a heart attack in 1888 while playing Mephistopheles.

Marina is certain the theatre has a ghost."There is so much energy generated during performances, and so many great performers have appeard there over the years. All that energy has to go somewheree, it cannot just hang around the rafters. The "Les Miserables" cast feel Frederici's presence from time to time, it is nothing to be scared of, just weird, one night, the computer lighting panel showed all the lights on, but they were not working. Another time, a cast memeber was sinigng solo centre stage when we saw a light appear above him. It was not a fixed spot that should have been there"

Marina is certain that Frederici will be the Phantom's understudy,, and that he will show his face quite a lot.!

Marina has a special attachment to the Princess Theatre, it was there 6 years ago that she started her dream run in musicals. she had gone to audition for the chorus in the Victoria State Operas production of "Pirates of Penzanance." but was chosen for the lead roll."They were very brave to go with a complete unkown." says Marina, whose credits include "Anything Goes" Camelot". HMS Pinafore" and "cats"

Phantom of the opera comes at a right stage in her career. "it is a challenge vocally and dramatically. Other shows have prepared me for it and there is a braveness in my acting I did not have before. I am ready now to take risks and not hide behind the character."

Before her big break in Prates of Penzance, Marina studied classical music and singing at Melbourne University, and helped pay her way by busking in the citi's Bourke Street Mall.

"Some students did waitressing, or shop work, but busking suited me far better. I learned how to hold the attention of the audience, once I let my energy go. I would lose the crowd, the public were very generous to me."

She hopes to take a break form Les Miserables in July and do some traveling. " I would love to go overseas, but I don't know if I could really afford it. I really don't want to go back packing around Europe. I want to go do things comfortable, go to nice dinners, see all the stage shows."

"Yes I would even go see the phantom in London, I know I should not start with preconceived ideas about Christine, but I 'll try to close my eyes when she comes on stage"

Phantom will run for at least 18 months in Melbourne, before heading for Sydney if a suitable there can be found

"I daren't be tired. it is all to good to be true, I look after myself I am into health foods, I do areobics and I do not party all night, A soprano just can not do that, the voice needs to be crystal clear with a lot of height, if I am tired the first thing to go is the top nots, and they are more improtant to me than staying out a couple hours extra."

Mariana, may look all sweetness an light but you can sense the toughness."You need to be tough, it is like selling a product and I am the product."

http://the330.com/arts-culture/brunswick-native-brings-musical-talents-to-phantom/

New Phantom Star: The other week as she moved into the star dressing room opposite Micheal Crawford, Patti Cohenour, the Christine in Andrew Lloyd Webber/Charles Hart/Richard Stilgoe's The Phantom of the Opera, bubbled with excitement.

"Oh, this is wonderful!" Patti marveld as she went in."Before, I shared a room upstairs!" Her Exuberance grew as she went to her dressing table to discover that the large arrangement of flowers was from Sarah Brightman, the Original Christine, and her husband, Andrew Lloyd Webber. the note read; "Sorry we can't be with you tonight, but we know you'll be wonderful!"

Until early June, Patti had been playing Christine two performances a week. Now she has been elevated to co-stardom opposite Crawford's Tony-winning Phantom. "Unfortunately, Sarah and I never got to spend much time together, but when we did it was relaxed and pleasent. I felt it imperative to strike ups ome kind of relationship."

Patti rehearsed and watched, learning all the moves expected of her. "You have to stay back and learn what you can without being intrusive. I stayed out of sight, out of mind. I knew my place. The role was Sarah's. I have had my moments of glory. (The New York Shakespeare Festival production of La Boheme, a featured role in Tony-wining Big River and a prominent featured role as Rosa Bud in the Mystery of Edmond Drood, for which she was nominated for a Tony) So I know how she must have felt."

Patti did'nt mind because "As it turned out, I had the best job on broadway. I was doing my performances and getting no pressure. So why create any? I told Dale Kristien, who's come in as the new alternate, it's extrodenary if you can deal with keeping ti smooth. It's hard on hte company when they have to get used to a new person a couple of times a week when readjust to another"

"I had no reason to complain or be upset. People would ask, 'Aren't you sad you're not out there every perfomance?' and seemed suprised when I said no. It never was a sure thing that I'd take the part over. I had to prove myself. I hung in there!"

That's a great attitude to have. Cohenour was quite a good Christine. Not quite one of my favorites, but very good.

thats true, and I like how she gave Sarah Brightman kudos, she was nice to Sarah and Sarah was nice to her,

http://www.broadwaynights.com/pages/starcg02.html

Haunting New Phantom, New York Post, Tuesday May 2, 1989, by Jerry Tallmer

Chris Groenendaal, Crawford's replacement is a soulful 6-footer. The Music of the Night must have been playing some sort of special song over Erie, PA., 41 years ago-as song of sensitivity, of almost hypnotic sensuality. If you thought Michael Crawford had some of those qualities as the original Phantom of "Phantom of the Opera" wait til you see Chris Groendaal, now in the role, a native son of Erie, PA., 6 feet 2 inches of slim, charming all American apparition in blue jeans and sneakers, switching on a radio and saying " Don't minda a little Country Western, Do you?"

Groenendaal, the original Monsieur Andre, one of the bedeveiled backers of the opera in Andrew Lloydd Webber/Gaston Leroux musical at the Majestic, had gone on six times as the Phantom as standby for Crawford before takeing over for good March 20."You do not have time to get nervous, you are so caught up in the shows technical problems. if you get through the first week without getting killed, it is a miricle. It took me 27 performances to figure out how to be comfortable enough on the angel"-The gilt angel on which the Phantom appears overhead, his deforemed fave concealed by a huge Bosolin hat, sining All I ask of you to Christine , who he loves but does not love him back.

"I am taller than anyone else who has done it, and when I stood up and hit A-flat, I got this sense of vertigo, I saw trhe mezzanine go away from me. I decieded less heroics, more commone sense, so first of all I decided not to stand up where others"-Phantoms, Michael Crawford, Tim Nolan, Jeff Keller -"had stood up, then a bar was welded for me to hook my feet under, which is what is there now., But I am still finding my way."

When all is said and done it is a very intense role." The time spent on the makeup proces alone an hour and a half a day. plus this kind of pressure." He meant carrying as show which even now, 15 months after opening, has a $23 million advance."I do not think that people think about that . they think 'what a wonderful opportunity' they do not think what it all means."

He has done two other shows for Harold Prince, (Sweeny Todd, and Candide) and a great many other things on and off Broadway.

But this is the first one with as complicated a mix of live and taped sound or as demanding a range from "soft pianissimo to flat out vocal screaming."

He takes enormous satisfaction from working opposite Patti Cohenour-"A wonderful collegeue, very dedicated, very consistent." as Christine. On Monday and Wensday evenings the Christine is Rebecca Luker, with her he went down to Washington last year to sing Gershwin at the Library of Congress.

His own lady is conductor/pianist, Sue Anderson."Where getting married this year, We said that last year."

the son of Jessie and Charles Groenendaal the now retired owner of a wholesale meat business. the name is Dutch, it goes back 3 or four generations in this country, The current Groenendaal's earliest memory is of walking a long a beach at age 3 with his paternal great-great-grandfather. "We Called him Opah, he lived from 1873 to 1973, 100 years, I remember a crow walking along the beach beside us, Very Ingmar Bergman, don't you think"

So here we are . To reduce the Phantom to it essentials, it just the story of a lonesome guy isn't it?'

Groenenedall looked dryly amused "A lonely guy with a lot of heart who happens to be psychotic, thorough no fault of his own".

http://www.al.com/halloween/index.ssf/2007/10/five_phantom_moments.html