Where Were you in January 1988?

[Chanticleer148]

Posted: 1/8/06 at 9:11am

Where were you in January 1988?

It seems like only yesterday that the Broadway community was celebrating the final show of CATS, the spectacular Andrew Lloyd Weber creation from 1982 that became the longest running musical in Broadway history. Actually, that final performance was in September 2000.

Share your first experience.

Tell Your Phantom of the Opera Stories.

A Tribute To Phantom of the Opera: The Longest Running Musical In Broadway History Updated On: 1/8/06 at 09:11 AM

[wickedrentq]

Posted: 1/8/06 at 12:35pm

I was probably lying in my crib drinking from a bottle--I was 1 and 1/2

[Phantomerik15]

Posted: 1/8/06 at 2:02pm

I didn't even exist yet!...not until 3 years later!lol

[Chanticleer148]

Posted: 1/8/06 at 6:20pm

Hopefully more people will answer the question, Where were you in January, 1988?

Also, tell about your "first time" at Pahntom of the Opera? Where were you..................??
A Tribute To Phantom of the Opera: The Longest Running Musical In Broadway History

[Parks]

Posted: 1/8/06 at 6:21pm

*thinks about it*

...EWWWW

I was born a year later.

[Unknown User]

Posted: 1/8/06 at 6:21pm

wasnt born yet. I was born in August of 88.

[wexy]

Posted: 1/8/06 at 6:26pm

1988 is the year I caught the theatre bug at the ripe age of 32.
I'd only seen one play before. I'd met some girl who was into the theatre and I was able to join TDF through work.

She wound up schizzing out me (literally). I saw an OffBroadway show with Laura Dern and Kyle McClaughlin (sp) followed by Lithgow in 'M Butterfly' and Amy Irving and Athol Fugard play "The Road to Mecca."

The rest is history.

[kate2]

Posted: 1/8/06 at 6:26pm

Add me onto the "i wasnt born yet" list.

[zepka102]

Posted: 1/8/06 at 6:27pm

preschool. it'll be about 4 years until i first hear about the show!

[JLSatUD]

Posted: 1/8/06 at 6:28pm

I was in elementary school.

First time I saw POTO was in 8th grade on a Band and Orchestra trip, spring of 1993. At the time we were all sad cause a bunch of my friends siblings had gone on the trip a few years earlier and seen a lot of the OBC.

[DramaDork925]

Posted: 1/8/06 at 6:30pm

Nonexistant

[Gingersnap]

Posted: 1/8/06 at 6:32pm

I'd just turned 14. I fell in love with the show a few months later when a teacher played the OLC for my class.

I waited until last year to see it. And...er...overcompensated.

[Elphaba3]

Posted: 1/8/06 at 6:34pm

I had just turned 3, so I don't really remember. I was probably playing with my baby doll.

[colleen_lee]

Posted: 1/8/06 at 6:36pm

Probably playing Nintendo? I was only 5 at the time.

I first discovered Phantom in 1990 when a friend's mom had the cast recording on cassette tape. I was about 7 and we'd dress up and play the parts along to the tape in their basement. We would turn their old day bed into the Phantom's lair. As you can tell, I was the coolest little kid ever.

I didn't get to see it on stage until '97 or '98.

[Marlene]

Posted: 1/8/06 at 6:41pm

Errrm...I don't even think I was a fetus yet.

[philcrosby]

Posted: 1/8/06 at 6:46pm

In January 1988, I was preparing for my second season at Cleveland's Great Lakes Theater Festival, where we were producing a modern-dress Hamlet and a new play featuring Cloris Leachman, among other great shows.

I first saw Phantom in London that same year starring Dave Willetts, Claire Moore and Michael Ball, along with productions of Kiss Me Kate, Lettice and Lovage (starring Maggie Smith), and Follies with Julia McKenzie, Millicent Martin, Daniel Massey and Eartha Kitt. I also got to hang out with Ms. Moore, and Judy Kaye. It was a great trip!!

[Chanticleer148]

Posted: 1/8/06 at 7:19pm

could you tell me about that wonderful picture of Ethel Merman?
A Tribute To Phantom of the Opera: The Longest Running Musical In Broadway History

[eponine88]

Posted: 1/8/06 at 7:50pm

January 1988??? Hmmmm, well I was born in October of 1988 so I'll let you guys do the math...............

[jo]

Posted: 1/8/06 at 7:53pm

I was preparing for a business trip to New York in March of that year. When I arrived in NYC, a friend who was my Broadway buddy when I used to work in New York, persuaded me that I had to see LES MISERABLES if I hadn't done so...So, I did, compliments of the tickets secured by the hotel concierge ...The same hotel concierge was persuading me to get tickets for PHANTOM OF THE OPERA ( which had just opened and was widely acclaimed)- but I didn't get tickets as they were priced ( off-box office prices ) at the princely sum then of $ 125 each

It wasn't until 2 years later that I was able to see PHANTOM on Broadway...followed by two more occasions at the West End years later.

[dancingthrulife04]

Posted: 1/8/06 at 8:27pm

I wasn't even a though yet, and I wasn't born until January 1989.

[C is for Company]

Posted: 1/8/06 at 9:24pm

Oh I was partially existent! 4 more months till I'm born!

[xM3L24x]

Posted: 1/8/06 at 9:26pm

I was waiting somewhere in the universe to be concieved, which would happen two years later and then i'd be born in 1991 :).

[Forester]

Posted: 1/8/06 at 9:27pm

I was 12 and watching GI Joe and Transformers.

[Wicked_fan]

Posted: 1/8/06 at 9:27pm

I was half a year old...

[ikmbway]

Posted: 1/8/06 at 9:28pm

I wasn't alive. Next decade I was born. :)