One of Steve Barton's final performances...

The following is a subtitled scene from Tanz Der Vampire, which features the late Steve Barton as Count Von Krolock.

I was crestfallen when I recently discovered what happened to him, after researching cast members from the original Phantom. It's clear at this point that Barton was really coming into his own as a performer.

I'm convinced that if he had lived to perform an American version of this, he would have easily won a Tony, become a Broadway superstar, and stepped out of the shadows of Michael Crawford and Sarah Brightman.

It's a real shame. Just look at this.


Steve Barton as Count Von Krolock

What also would have helped was avoiding the desire to fix what did not need to be fixed. The thing ran almost three hours in Vienna, so make some cuts, but don't rewrite the whole thing.

Sorry, I'm rambling about it again, aren't I? *laughs nervously*

---

Updated On: 11/24/16 at 01:00 PM

...Sad indeed.
Steve Barton A Life dedicated to the Stage

...you have heard of shows that take years in gestation, right?

---

The show was to be opened by early 2002, Crawford managed to get the role in July 2001, a few days before Steve´s passing. Shortly after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, the show postponed its opening until next season…you probably heard about..
Steve Barton A Life dedicated to the Stage

What are we not getting? You raised two points.

Point 1: There was not much Steinman could do in terms of casting anyway. To which I responded: ...there was a lot Steinman could do. As anyone who worked on the show will tell you, Jim had the final say on everything, and he signed off on everything he could just to get it open. A sad example of the detrimental effect business and politics have on art; when you compromise your principles to get the big bucks, it'll come back to bite you in the ass.

Point 2: Regardless of the fact that a person is dead, one can still wish they were alive to play the role or that things had turned out better for the production, which engenders the emotion commonly called "regret." If you can't wrap your head around the idea of a "what-if," what do you do with your spare time?

---

Updated On: 8/4/12 at 09:58 PM