Australian LOVE NEVER DIES to Feature Giant Mask, Rollercoaster, Freak Show and More

The Australian Production of LOVE NEVER DIES, Andrew Lloyd Webber's sequel to PHANTOM OF THE OPERA, is set to open at Melbourne's Regent Theatre next May, with a creative team that features Simon Phillips as director, Graeme Murphy as choreographer and Gabriela Tylesova as set and costume designer.  The sequel is set in 1907 in New York's Coney Island theme park, where the Phantom has resided since fleeing the Paris Opera House a decade earlier - and where he lures Christine in a final bid to win back her love. 

According to a recent article in the Sydney Morning Herald, the creative team behind the Australian adaptation will be implementing changes for this incarnation of the sequel for Australian audiences, given the mixed reviews in London, with the full support and consent of Mr. Webber.

"Its a huge vote of confidence in Australian creative abilities for Andrew to so readily agree to this," says Tim McFarlane, who runs the Asia-Pacific arm of the Lloyd Webber's production.  "There are new costumes, a new set, new choreography, new lighting... only the basic storyline and music are the same."

Among the new creative features of the Australian production will be an enormous Phantom mask which will slide out of the wings, a wooden rollercoaster, hats made out of bird skulls and a freak show with a fat lady, a group of little people and a tattooed cyclops.

In addition to the darker, edgier production changes, McFarlane hopes to bring LOVE NEVER DIES back to Lloyd Webbers original vision for the sequel. 'In Phantom of the Opera, the Phantom was busily murdering and dispatching people, so we're injecting a lot of that menace back into it. This is very much Phantom 2.'

For more details about the Australian upcoming production of LOVE NEVER DIES click here.

Photo Credit: Jeff Busby