Phantom Closing? — Page 49

In the speeches, did anyone mention Richard Stilgoe, who cowrote the book or Charles Hart who wrote the lyrics or did ALW's ego not allow it?

ImAProphet said: "HunterK said: "Not sure if Ben had a good night?

https://twitter.com/crawdady21/status/1647732731202134020”

Deleted...can you paraphrase? Curious what makes you say that"

The tweet said “I read your sh*tty comments then go to your profiles & laugh” with a shrug emoji. (There’s a screenshot on his Instagram story if you want to see. It looks like he deletes all his tweets - I assume he doesn’t want to support TIIC at Twitter.) Definitely him poking fun at those who were implying there were other reasons he was missing from the show. He also liked a tweet that said “As someone who’s not a fan of Ben Crawford’s Phantom, I’m fine with this.” He’s clearly in good spirits about the situation.

Updated On: 4/17/23 at 05:17 AM

defenses said: "poto19882023 said: "Was at the stage door tonight, Ben Crawford came out to sign and take pictures and overhearing the way his voice sounded when he spoke the vocal injury seems to be VERY very true. He sounded extremely quiet and husky/raspy. It was quite surprising. Having been at his final performances he definitely didn’t sound rough enough to get to this point. And his final performance on April 1 evening was one of the strongest I’d heard from him. You really felt for the guy."

Such kind words from one of the people who implied it wasn’t a very nice separation between Ben and the show. :) (PS - he was losing his voice in the second act on 4/1 so it definitely wasn’t a vocally strong show for him.)"

If I had implied it wasn’t because of his voice then I definitely apologize. I always thought it was a vocal issue, I was definitely being quite skeptical around the nature of his vocal issues. But I apologize for doing so. Regardless of my thoughts on his performance it’s really scary to hear his voice having gotten to that point and hopefully it recovers.

We’ll have to agree to disagree on April 1, listening back to the performance many moments were either stronger than or just on par with the usual. Definitely his best “where you long to beee” I’ve heard. I definitely noticed him roughening up by the end of the 3/31 performance which is why it wasn’t surprising when he said he was thinking of calling out for the 4/1 matinee.

Perhaps if some kind of ‘document’ of the 4/1 evening show were to somehow appear then perhaps I could see if others feel similarly either way…hmmm…

Good catch. It was probably an autocorrect situation that wasn’t given a second glance.

I have high hopes that we will see the final performances that were filmed for archives. There’s a lot of performances (from productions all over the world - West End, Christine Tour, Japanese productions, etc) that were filmed for archives and have since surfaced and circulated within the community. Fingers crossed!

ALW is on MSNBC right now

poto19882023 said: "defenses said: "poto19882023 said: "Was at the stage door tonight, Ben Crawford came out to sign and take pictures and overhearing the way his voice sounded when he spoke the vocal injury seems to be VERY very true. He sounded extremely quiet and husky/raspy. It was quite surprising. Having been at his final performances he definitely didn’t sound rough enough to get to this point. And his final performance on April 1 evening was one of the strongest I’d heard from him. You really felt for the guy."

Such kind words from one of the people who implied it wasn’t a very nice separation between Ben and the show. :) (PS - he was losing his voice in the second act on 4/1 so it definitely wasn’t a vocally strong show for him.)"

If I had implied it wasn’t because of his voice then I definitely apologize. I always thought it was a vocal issue, I was definitely being quite skeptical around the nature of his vocal issues. But I apologize for doing so. Regardless of my thoughts on his performance it’s really scary to hear his voice having gotten to that point and hopefully it recovers.

We’ll have to agree to disagree on April 1, listening back to the performance many moments were either stronger than or just on par with the usual. Definitely his best “where you long to beee” I’ve heard. I definitely noticed him roughening up by the end of the 3/31 performance which is why it wasn’t surprising when he said he was thinking of calling out for the 4/1 matinee.

Perhaps if some kind of ‘document’ of the 4/1 evening show were to somehow appear then perhaps I could see if others feel similarly either way…hmmm…"

Talking about how he’s never coming back and that his dressing room was cleaned out (creepy thing to know, btw) implies it’s something more than just vocal rest.

I won’t get too deep into this discussion because this is not the proper channel for it. As I said, it was the second act. His MOTN was quite lovely (on my “document,” I am sure you can hear my friend whisper “much better” to me). I’ll specifically point to his PONR, which sounded more like Friday’s than it did Tuesday’s or Wednesday’s.

Yes Davis Gaines was there. I was talking to him for several minutes.

BorisTomashevsky said: "Davis Gaines was not there. I think he lives in California or Florida. I read family owns an orange juice or breakfast cereal company (or something) there."



BorisTomashevsky -- honestly curious to know why you would post something that is so easily proven to be false? What did you possibly stand to gain by having people think that Gaines was not there? Very odd...

According to ALW as printed in the NYT the nut for Phantom is about $1 million post-pandemic! (850k pre). "and that’s with minimum royalties going to its creators."

Jordan Catalano said: "ALW’s latest video on TikTok, he says “The chandelier, it will rise again somewhere in New York much sooner than people might think.”"

I might be completely making it up, but I'm fairly confident I read in this thread someone saying that the plan was to reopen the show at Stage 42. I'm too lazy to dig through the thread to find who said it and when but could that be the plan? Reopen the show in the fall at Stage 42 for a limited run with the version that toured the US while the Shuberts renovate the Majestic then transfer the show back to Broadway with the current version playing in London?

I know it's not that popular of an opinion, but I won't really mind at all if they bring the current London production over. From the videos and photos I've seen, it is in many ways the original Hal Prince production albeit with modifications and not as intricate of a set. But it's still very much recognizable as the traditional Phantom we know and love.

It's coming back as the NBC show, to prime the pump for the downsized London version. Then the downsized London version comes back. Likely not to the Majestic; house minimums wouldn't let them slash the orchestra.

Listener said: "Let's get real guys.

Nobody with any connection to this show, besides Cam, is saying it was losing so much money it had to close. As stated, the tourism industry in New York is in recovery and Phantom was increasingly special because of the type of show it was. And it was still being discovered by new audiences impressed with its design and direction. There is nothing like it. Wicked is Wicked. Lion King is Lion King. Phantom is Phantom.

Look at how they treated its closing performances. No special guests. No fan 'thank you' moments. It could have been a month-long celebration.

nstead, only the charity show and finale gala got any bells and whistles, because that gets press and is obligatory, I guess.

There were so many missed opportunities here. And no, I don't think the show would have wasted away due to low ticket sales. It really was ageless as a piece of live entertainment and never lost appeal. How many real sets are there on Broadway anymore?

So, no, let's not squabble about how Phantom nearly went broke...because it didn't.

We know what this is about. And when the new version ends up being substantially cheaper in all respects, there will be no argument anymore.

I really think if it was budget issues, people would be backing up Cam. They are not. Not even Andrew."

Yes, lets get real. The show had been running for 30 odd years. Anyone who wanted to see it, already had. If anyone was discovering it for the first time, it makes absolutely no difference to the box office numbers.

The show didn't owe the fans anything, Not even a tossed out playbill. They didn't keep it going for as long as it did.Why some people think they were part of someone else's success, just because they like it is baffling to me. The theatre holds over 1600 people per night, and ran for nearly 14,000 performances, The phans wouldnt even make up 1% of those numbers.

The show quite clearly lost its appeal because people weren't going.

Ageless pieces of entertainment cost money, to run and upkeep.

The majority of Broadway shows have real sets.

The London production is barely breaking even as it is. I'm sure it will come back to Broadway and yes it will be a cheaper production. Best save some of those tears for then.