The Technical Side of THE PHANTOM OF THE OPERA's North American Tour

During the load-in for the very successful run of the "Phantom of the Opera's" Denver leg of the tour, I got the chance to go to two nights of the load-in for the show and Advance Manager David Hansen took the time out to answer some technical questions about the touring production.

Do you use a jump-set?

We do, yes, out of twenty 48 foot trucks, nine are duplicated. So we call that our advance week. So we started working a week ago Sunday. And we worked Sunday Through Friday of last week while the show was still running in L.A. (This interview took place on a Tuesday evening)

I think you may have answered this question but do you use two sets and do you use a bigger set and a smaller set based on the house you are in?

All of our inventory, it's all the same size. What can happen is our proscenium arch, the big gold frame here, it can be four heights and four widths. So as we go into a smaller theater that has a tighter proscenium, we fit within that proscenium. But we always want to be wide to the side because we don't want to kill any side seats. That's the one thing that does adjust the most as we hit different cities and different theaters. All of the big scenery that's seen on-stage behind the proscenium, we only have one size of that. One thing, what happens in the advance week, our stage floor goes down. It is ten inches deep. All of the candles, all hundred and forty one candles, we have two prosceniums, we have two chandeliers, and all of the front of house lighting goes in. All of the cables for electrics, automation, sound, all of the speakers in the house, all of those are put in, in the advance week.

What happens with the chandelier?

We have two chandeliers and they jump to every city so each advance package has a chandelier. We get it in and we actually run it on the cables during the advance week. And then we have to wait until we get in with the service trusses to get things online. It's ten feet tall. Once a year it goes back into the shop for weld inspection and everything just for all safety. Every city we come to we just have to put one of the little globes on the side back on. It travels condensed down so it is only about six feet tall in a dolly. But sometimes something can bang into that in the truck. One of those will pop free, so we remount it. (A few notes: The chandelier has a safety cable so if anything happens, it will always swing towards the stage and not fall directly down. Also, the chandelier is not built up in the back like it is in the front. No press photos are ever taken of the back of the chandelier)

One of our readers asked: In the rooftop scene, if it is two separate flown pieces or are they collapsible and driven on from the wings?

The rooftop scene is one drop. Painted on that drop for our tour is forced prospective. On Broadway, It's a piece that comes up out of the floor. A plexi- glass cut piece and then the velour drop with the stars built into it. But for our tour, we opened in a very small theater in 1992 (The 5th Avenue in Seattle Washington) and they knew if they could fit this big Phantom into that small theater, one of the smallest theaters in the United States for the touring circuit, that it could fit anywhere. So they looked at, what can we keep the look but take up one last rope to fly on, or we don't have the depth....because in New York, the candelabras come up out of the floor, ours travel off from the side. We knew in the first two years that certain theaters didn't have the basement. We couldn't dig a basement just for those effects. In New York it's two pieces but for us it is just this one piece.

Within the past year, the sound was re-designed at the Majestic Theater for the Broadway production. Were there any sound changes made in the touring production to match the changes made on Broadway?

We did. In November (2008) going into San Francisco and going into Los Angeles, with the advanced package, basically the proscenium is also our sound speaker cluster. They did look at the tour. Initially they weren't going to do anything but they looked at the tour and said "We're going to do those modifications to the tour as well". So we added some days going into San Francisco and L.A. so we could build the advance and then have time to update our entire sound system.

Does it make it much easier to load in when you know the theater had you in mind? This theater (The Buell) in particular.

It really does. Phantom, in the time that it has been around, they are building a new theater in Durham, our head carpenter went there and if they can build our steel requirements into the building, they do that. The Buell knew where the chandelier would hang. The proscenium is actually hung on eight motor points. We also have the two big service trusses in the wings left and right. One side is all of the automation equipment. The other side is all of the sound and electrical equipment. It gets all of that equipment up off the stage floor and it frees up that area for people and for scenery. As they did these renovations, they knew our criteria and they built that steel in. As we travel, we have to do that in every theater. We do a steel installation for the chandelier over the audience. We do it for the proscenium and then we do it over the grid for the service trusses.  The Buell Theater opened with "The Phantom Of The Opera. The Buell made some modifications so it could present the show.

So to clarify, you do this in theaters that haven't been built to support the show?

Right. It is interesting. "The Lion King" and " Wicked" share our proscenium points. So they know "Phantom's played it. That exists. The Opera House in Detroit was renovated and we were in on that renovation to know that it fit our criteria. We haven't played it yet, but "Wicked" did. So they were the first ones to utilize that. Anytime we go back to a theater, we do a total inspection of the welding on the steel for the chandelier. I know that "Peter Pan" with Cathy Rigby in certain cities would use our chandelier point for that rigging. So if someone else has used it, we make sure it is up to our needs. You know, in five years something could have happened so we definitely do an inspection and if need be, go back and weld points.

Other tour facts that Mr. Hansen shared with me:

Every time the show moves, people are added to every department but hair and company management. There are more electricians. All of the people working in Denver had to vacate their position in the previous city so they had to fill in the holes in the previous city while the Advance guys were in Denver. Everyone goes to the previous city (L.A. in this case) to load the trucks. Everyone then goes to the current city to get the show up. And then also to help train the locals who will do props and be stagehands with their cues. Wardrobe has extra people to help train the dressers. There are 14 dressers that help with all of the changes. There are 5 hairdressers that travel with the show. The orchestra travels also, however for the two stops prior to Denver (San Francisco and L.A.) a local orchestra was used. Only a core of the normal group in the orchestra was used. The full traveling orchestra returned to the show, after some time off, for the Denver run. The show did two preview performance s to iron out any kinks. Mr. Hansen gave me a behind the scenes tour which included showing me how the candles rose from under the stage, (They paint the floor every other city to keep the gloss) a view of the chandelier from behind while it sat on the stage, a look at the changing stations offstage (Close to 65 people work backstage). Every wig is washed and set every four weeks (Or more frequently). There are 2 wig ovens. The actors have to be at the theater by 7:30 for an 8:00 curtain. )So with all of the make-up and wigs, this crew moves fast!) Also Mr. Hansen told me about the mics and both the Phantom and Christine, on the tour, are on two mics.

I would like to thank Mr. Hansen for taking the time to sit down and talk with me and taking me on a tour of the Phantom set and backstage. With all that was going on around us Mr. Hansen was cool and relaxed as he showed us, the press, around.