Phantoms from Crawford to Gleason Talk Tour Closing

In a recent LA Stage Times article, previous Phantoms including Michael Crawford and Tim Martin Gleason, talked about the end of the PHANTOM OF THE OPERA tour, which will close on Halloween night at the Pantages Theatre in Los Angeles.

Why is the tour coming to an end? According to Tim Martin Gleason, who played the Phantom in 2009 after playing Raoul for seven years, "The technology is so old and so expensive to move. After 20 years, and with the economy the way it is, the cost of moving it is becoming a liability."

Closing Phantom in Los Angeles, the city where it began, was a planned decision that has sentimental value to Andrew Lloyd Webber and producer Cameron Mackintosh said Gleason.

For Gleason, the end of the tour means unemployment, "I've been looking forward to it," he said. "I've been gainfully employed by Phantom for the past nine years. It's kind of ridiculous and unprecedented."

DC Anderson, who has been with the show 20 years, is "excited about going back to New York and auditioning. Phantom's been my life and given me so much. It's a cliché to say that it's become a family but it has. The thought of not seeing these people every day hasn't really hit me. But it will."

Dale Kristien, the longest running Christine Daae, has listened to plenty of Phantoms, including Michael Crawford, Robert Guillaume, and Davis Gaines.

"Michael was pathetic," she says, "so very sensitive. He was heart-wrenching. He just broke my heart every night and made me cry because he was so hurt. Robert played him more angrily, angry at the way life treated hiM. Davis wasn't on either extreme. He was more in the middle. He played the Phantom as a very strong man, more in control and," she adds with a laugh, "when things weren't going his way, it certainly irritated him!"

Gaines reminisced about his first audition for Raoul on Broadway. "I was replacing Kevin Gray who was taking a leave of absence to do another Hal Prince show, Kiss of the Spider Woman. I didn't have to sing for Hal but I sang for Mackintosh," he said. "I got the job right away. I played Raoul for about four months on Broadway and broke my ankle jumping off the bridge. I finished that show on my knees. Six months later I got a call to audition for the Phantom," Gaines said.

Prince was then putting together the Canadian touring company in Toronto, so Gaines flew there. "It was between me and David Cassidy. I was asked that day if I'd like to go to Los Angeles. I learned the show in New York, went back to Toronto to show Hal what I was doing, and they shipped me out here. I had probably one rehearsal with the cast. When Crawford finished on a Sunday night, I opened the following Tuesday. I believe it was April 30, 1991. I didn't know what I was getting myself into."

Gaines signed on for 9 months. "That was the longest I'd ever done a show up to that point," he said. "I just didn't realize the power of that show, the mystique of it, and what a big deal it was in LA. It had already run here for two years. I stepped into some big shoes and a big responsibility. It kept getting better and ran for two and a half more years."

The Phantoms went on to talk about topics including make-up, changing roles, auditions, and how the show changed their lives.

One thing is certain, said Gleason. "You will never see this replication of the Broadway show ever again."

The Phantom of the Opera, presented by Cameron Mackintosh and The Really Useful Theatre Company, Inc., continies Tue.-Fri., 8 pm; Sat., 2 & 8 pm; Sun., 1 & 6:30 pm; through Oct. 31. Tickets: $50-$250. Pantages Theatre, 6233 Hollywood Blvd., Los Angeles; 800.982.2787 or www.BroadwayLA.org.

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